Blue Rider Nabs Adult Picture Book
Sarah Hochman at Blue Rider Press took world English rights to Horace and Agnes: A Love story, an illustrated gift book about a romance between a horse and a squirrel. The book, by author Lynn Dowling and photographer Asia Kepka, is based off of a 2014 exhibit the pair mounted at Massachusetts’s Griffin Museum for Photography depicting the relationship through a series of varied images. Bethany Buck at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates brokered the deal for Dowling and Kepka, and she said that Blue Rider’s forthcoming edition, which is set for fall 2016, will differ from a same-titled limited edition book that the Griffin sold.
Novak to Harlequin for 7 Figures
Bestselling author Brenda Novak (Whiskey Creek series) signed an 11-book world-rights deal with Harlequin for seven figures. Margaret O’Neill Marbury, Harlequin’s v-p of women’s fiction editorial, brokered the agreement with Dan Raines at the Creative Trust Literary Group, and through it, Novak will be publishing nine books with the house’s Mira imprint, and two with its Harlequin Special Edition imprint. Paula Eykelhof, executive editor of single titles and Novak’s longtime editor, will be editing. Novak has written more than 50 books and won numerous awards, including the National Readers’ Choice Award.
Chronicle Strikes a Downward Dog
Lauren Lipton’s Yoga Bodies, featuring photographs by Jaimie Baird, was acquired by Elizabeth Yarborough at Chronicle. Yarborough took world rights to the book, which shows a variety of yogis in a range of poses, from agent Laura Langlie. The book focuses on practitioners of all “shapes, sizes, and abilities,” Langlie said, and delivers “a personal story in which they share a meaningful aspect of their yoga practice.” Lipton is a journalist whose work has appeared in various outlets, including the New York Times; Baird’s images have appeared in Vogue, among other outlets.
Lytton Takes ‘Ruby Starr’ to Sourcebooks
Aubrey Poole at Sourcebooks nabbed world English rights, in a three-book deal, to the middle grade chapter-book series the Fictional and (Sometimes) Fabulous World of Ruby Starr by Deborah Lytton. Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich, who represented Lytton, said the series is about “the everyday problems most fourth graders face.” The books feature thought bubbles from the titular fourth grader throughout, which, Glick explained, allow the reader to “step away from the story into Ruby’s mind, as she walks a red carpet or enters a cave decorated with jewels.” The first book in the series is set for spring 2017, with the others schedule to appear a year apart.
Europa Settles into ‘Place’ with Maksik
Editor-in-chief at Europa Editions, Michael Reynolds, bought U.S. rights to Alexander Maksik’s new novel, Shelter in Place, from Eric Simonoff at William Morris Endeavor. The book is set in the Pacific Northwest during the 1990s and follows a 21-year-old with bipolar disorder who meets a woman and plots a violent crime with her. Reynolds called the novel a “solidly American story about mental illness, youth, gender, family, the power of love, and the ideals we live by and are willing to kill for.” Maksik’s last book, 2013’s A Marker to Measure Drift (Knopf), was named a New York Times Notable Book.
