HQN Signs Ross for Seven
In a high-six-figure deal negotiated by Denise Marcil and Anne Marie O’Farrell of Marcil-O’Farrell Literary, Harlequin HQN’s Susan Swinwood and Dianne Moggy acquired world and audio rights to seven books by JoAnn Ross, who has published dozens of romance books both traditionally and through self-publishing. According to the publisher, “Ross will pen a mass-market trilogy, two standalone hard covers and two novellas for HQN.” The first book in the series, the Honeymoon Harbor trilogy, will follow “the lives, relationships, and drama of two founding but not so amicable families in an idyllic seaport town in Washington’s Olympic peninsula,” and will be published in spring 2018, according to the publisher.
Hyperion Nabs Middle Grade Coding Novel
In a six-figure, two-book deal, Emily Meehan and Julie Rosenberg at Disney-Hyperion took world rights to Click’d, the first middle grade novel by Tamara Ireland Stone. Caryn Wiseman of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency represented Stone. The novel follows a seventh grader named Allie who builds an app that goes viral, giving her the chance to win a coding competition and one-up a boy in her school who’s also tech savvy. When a glitch in the app surfaces, Allie suddenly finds herself having to win back her friends and work with the boy she was competing against. Included with the book will be information about Code.org, a nonprofit that Wiseman said is “dedicated to expanding access to computer science and increasing participation [in the field] by women and underrepresented minorities.” Stone is the author of the YA novels Every Last Word and Time Between Us. Click’d is slated for fall 2017.
BTK Killer’s Daughter Moves Memoir
In a deal arranged by Doug Grad of the Doug Grad Literary Agency, Jenny Baumgartner at Thomas Nelson, an imprint of HarperCollins, bought world rights to a memoir by Kerri Rawson tentatively titled Someday My Heart Will Mend: Holding onto Faith, Surviving the Trauma of My Dad, the BTK Serial Killer. Rawson, the daughter of Dennis Rader—the so-called BTK Killer (who was convicted of murdering 10 people over a 20-year period)—delivers, in Grad’s wording, a “heartbreaking account of her journey to forgiveness” in which she “called upon her shaken faith to come to terms with the devastation her father brought to the family.” Thomas Nelson plans to publish the book in 2018.
Rodale Takes Follow-up to ‘Run Fast. Eat Slow.’
Dervla Kelly, a senior editor at Rodale Books, secured world English rights to the tentatively titled Run Fast Eat Slow 2, which is the second book by Shalane Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky. The authors were represented by Danielle Svetcov at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. Flanagan is a four-time Olympic long-distance runner and Kopecky is a nutrition coach; in the book they offer an array of recipes targeted at, as Rodale put it, “young athletes and the young at heart.” The recipes, the publisher explained, are “approachable, quick, easy and affordable” and appear alongside the authors’ “shared wisdom (and jokes)” about “running, eating, and staying sane.” Flanagan and Kopecky’s first book, Run Fast. Eat Slow., was published by Rodale in 2016.
