Morrow Inks Berney to Double
Edgar Award–winner Lou Berney closed a high-six-figure, two-book, world-rights deal with Emily Krump at William Morrow. Berney (The Long and Faraway Gone) was represented in the agreement by Shane Salerno at the Story Factory. The first book in the deal, currently untitled, follows a New Orleans mob hit man who, forced to lie low in a small Oklahoma town, unwittingly falls for a local married woman. Elaborating, Morrow said, “As the relationship transforms them both... his past threatens the people he’s grown to love and he’s forced to once again become the killer he swore to leave behind.”

Simsion’s Latest to SMP
New Zealand–born author Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project) sold U.S. rights to his latest novel, The Best of Adam Sharp, to Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s Press. Inkwell Management’s David Forrer and Kim Witherspoon brokered the deal on behalf of Simsion’s Australian house, Text Publishing. The novel is about an aging former musician who, now married, can’t stop thinking about an affair he had 20 years earlier. About to turn 50, the man suddenly hears from his former flame and, SMP explained, “must ask himself if a song can turn out to be true, and if he’ll dare to live dangerously.” Adam Sharp is set for a spring 2017 release in the U.S.; it will be published in Australia and New Zealand this September.

Glines ‘Fades’ at Feiwel and Friends
Abbi Glines (the Vincent Boys series) sold world rights to a standalone novel called As She Fades to Jean Feiwel at Feiwel and Friends in a six-figure deal. Jane Dystel at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management represented Glines. DGLM said the novel follows a young woman recovering from a car accident “and the boy who is destined to help her put [her life] back together.”

Scout Welcomes Burns’s ‘Visitors’
In a U.S.-rights deal at Simon & Schuster’s new literary imprint Scout Press, Alison Callahan bought Catherine Burns’s novel, The Visitors. David Forrer at Inkwell Management brokered the deal for Burns, who is British, on behalf of U.K.-indie Legend Press. Calling the novel “Grey Gardens meets Room,” S&S said The Visitors, which is scheduled for winter 2018, follows a spinster who must confront the “horror” that her brother has kept under lock and key in the basement of their crumbling mansion.

Lisa See Gets Seven Figures at Scribner
In a seven-figure deal for two books, Scribner’s Kathy Belden acquired Lisa See’s novel The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. The North American–rights agreement was handled by Sandra Dijkstra, who has an eponymous shingle. Tea Girl chronicles the life of a woman from the Akha tribe who is living in a remote tea-growing region in China. When she becomes pregnant out of wedlock and must put her baby up for adoption, the little girl is taken in by an American family living in Los Angeles. As Belden explained, the novel follows a 20-year story arc that traces “the stories of mother and daughter, as well as the changes in rural Chinese society.” Tea Girl is set for summer 2017, and the second book in the deal for summer 2019.

Briefs
Jessica Young (the Finley Flowers series) closed a deal for two picture books with Sarah Shumway at Bloomsbury. Kelly Sonnack at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency brokered the world-rights deal at auction. The titles, Play This Book and Pet This Book, are interactive, and the first, Sonnack said, will show children how different instruments are played, while the second will demonstrate how different animals are cared for. Daniel Wiseman, who was represented by Bookmark Literary’s Teresa Kietlinski, is illustrating.

In a world-rights auction, Sterling’s Meredith Munday acquired Tammi Sauer’s latest picture book, Caring for Your Lion. Troy Cummings will illustrate the book, about a boy who sends away for a pet and receives a lion instead of a cat. Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown Literary represented Sauer (Nugget & Fang), and Ronnie Ann Herman at the Herman Agency represented Cummings (The Twelve Days of Christmas in Indiana). Caring for Your Lion is slated for May 2017.

Crooked Lane Books’ Matt Martz took world English rights, in a two-book deal, to Erica O’Rourke’s Time of Death. Written under the pseudonym Lucy Kerr, the novel follows an ER nurse who stumbles on a murder plot at the hospital where her sister is giving birth. Joanna Volpe at New Leaf Literary represented O’Rourke.

Devi Pillai at Hachette’s Redhook imprint took U.S. and Canadian rights to two new books in Vaseem Khan’s Baby Ganesh Agency mystery series. The first two books in the series, which is set in Mumbai, were published by Hachette’s Mulholland imprint in 2015 and 2016. Jason Bartholomew at Hodder & Stoughton brokered the agreement on behalf of agent Euan Thorneycroft. Redhook plans to publish the first book covered under the deal in May 2017, and the second in May 2018.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the central character in Graeme Simsion's The Best of Adam Sharp was married with children. He is married, but he does not have children.