HGTV Rehabbers Crash TarcherPerigee
The stars of HGTV’s Flip or Flop, Tarek and Christina El Moussa, sold a book called Flip Your Life to Marian Lizzi at TarcherPerigee in a six-figure deal. Lizzi took North American rights to the book, at auction, from agent Todd Shuster at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth and lawyer Roger Behle at Foley Bezek Behle & Curtis. The book, the PRH imprint said, will feature stories and “hard-won insights” from the couple’s work as house flippers, touching on how they reinvented themselves professionally after the housing market crashed. It will also delve into Tarek’s diagnosis of, and recovery from, cancer. The book is set for spring 2017, timed to coincide with the premiere of the seventh season of the couple’s show.
Soho Ties Down von Ziegesar, Gagnon
Daniel Ehrenhaft at Soho Teen closed a doubleheader last week. In the first deal, he took world rights to Gossip Girl–author Cecily von Ziegesar’s YA novel Dark Horses. Eric Brown at the law firm Franklin, Weinrib, Rudell & Vassallo brokered the sale on behalf of von Ziegesar who, Ehrenhaft said, pitched the book as a cross between “Black Beauty and The Breakfast Club.” The novel follows the relationship that develops between an unruly teenage girl and a failed racehorse, after the two meet at an equine therapy camp. Rights People has been handling foreign sales for the book on behalf of Soho, and has sold the novel in a number of territories, including France and Germany. Dark Horses is slated for a September release.
In the second deal, Ehrenhaft nabbed world English rights to a YA noir by Michelle Gagnon called Unearthly Things. A retelling of Jane Eyre with what Ehrenhaft described as a “supernatural twist,” the book is set in the world of San Francisco’s debutante society and follows an orphaned teenager beginning a new life with a mysterious adoptive family. Gagnon was represented by Stephanie Kip Rostan at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary, and the book is scheduled for April 2017.
Raasch Brings New YA to Balzer + Bray
Sara Raasch (Snow like Ashes series) sold world English rights to a currently untitled YA fantasy duology to Kristin Daly at Balzer + Bray. Mackenzie Brady Watson at New Leaf Literary represented Raasch and said the epic series is “inspired by the Spanish Inquisition and the golden age of piracy.” She explained that it follows three characters: “a woman seeking justice, a tortured pirate looking for redemption, and an ambitious prince out for power.”
Greenwillow Preempts Pic Book Series
Virginia Duncan at Greenwillow Books preempted world rights, in a two-book deal, to a picture book series called Luna and the Scientific Method! by Kimberly Derting and Shelli Johannes-Wells. The first book is set for fall 2017. Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown Literary represented Derting, and Lara Perkins, also at Andrea Brown, represented Johannes-Wells. Rennert said the series is about a “science-loving, question-asking girl” who discovers that “scientific inquiry... can lead to a lot of fun and adventure.” Derting (the Body Finder series) and Johannes-Wells (who uses the pseudonym S.R. Johannes and is the author of the Nature of Grace series) will be writing the series together; an illustrator for the books has yet to be chosen.
