DEAL OF THE WEEK
The Mueller Report Gets Graphic Treatment
Scribner and the Washington Post teamed up to release a book edition of the Mueller report in April; now they’ve joined forces again to create a graphic version of the work about the special counsel’s obstruction of justice inquiry. The Mueller Report Illustrated: The Obstruction Investigation will be released on December 3 (with the Postalso releasing a digital edition, including audio, on its website). The book, Scribner said, “provides a unique, graphic depiction of the report’s most scrutinized passages and pivotal moments, all contextualized with the Post’s original reporting.” The graphic work, Scribner added, “offers a fly-on-the-wall account of life in the White House, told through the accounts of the men and women who at one time served the president—James Comey, Michael Flynn, Donald McGahn, K.T. McFarland, Sean Spicer, Rod Rosenstein, Hope Hicks, Michael Cohen, and many others.”
FROM THE U.S.
Parker-Chan’s Debut Goes to Tor
In a six-figure, two-book deal at auction, Tor’s Diana Gill bought Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun. The debut novel was sold by Laura Rennert at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, who called it a “queer alternate history” in which “an iron-willed peasant girl steals her brother’s identity and great fate.” Rennert said she pitched the novel as “Mulan meets The Song of Achilles,” and that it’s “a bold reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty” in which the heroine “defies the bounds of gender with cunning and ingenuity, as her ambition takes her from monk to leader of the rebellion against China’s Mongol rulers.” Tor won world English rights to the book, which is slated for 2021.
Blake’s ‘Bodies’ Lands at Harper Teen
In a three-book deal, Harper Teen’s Alexandra Cooper bought Kendare Blake’s standalone All These Bodies, as well as a new fantasy series. Blake (the Three Dark Crowns series) was represented by Adriann Ranta Zurhellen at Foundry Literary + Media, who said All These Bodies follows a 15-year-old girl “who is the surviving victim turned suspect of a mysterious Midwestern murder spree.” The agent added that the novel “unspools like a speculative YA version of In Cold Blood.” The currently untitled series is about, Zurhellen said, “a mystical order of female warriors.” Bodies is set for fall 2021, and the first book in the series is scheduled for fall 2022.
Thomas Nelson Goes ‘Post-college’ with Bradbury-Haehl
Nora Bradbury-Haehl sold her follow-up to 2011’s The Freshman Survival Guide (Center Street, cowritten with Bill McGarvey) in a six-figure deal, after a five-bidder auction. The Post-college Survival Guide went to Webster Younce at Thomas Nelson in a world rights acquisition, brokered by Joelle Delbourgo, who has an eponymous shingle. Delbourgo said The Freshman Survival Guide—a college manual subtitled Soulful Advice for Studying, Socializing, and Everything in Between—has sold more than 150,000 copies to date. The new guide, the agent explained, is “the ultimate companion for navigating and winning at life’s most bewildering period: your 20s.”
Baker and Glasser Tackle Trump
Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a New Yorker “Letter from Washington” columnist, sold a book on Donald Trump’s effect on political culture in Washington, D.C., to Doubleday. The currently untitled work was bought, in a world rights deal, by Kristine Puopolo. Rafe Sagalynat ICM represented the authors, who are married and whom Doubleday called “two of the preeminent observers of American politics today.”
Arndt Gets ‘Minimal’ at Clarkson Potter
After a five-house auction, Sara Neville at Clarkson Potter won world rights to Michael Arndt’s Minimal New York City. The publisher described the book as a “graphic, gritty, and witty” gift book that “juxtaposes iconic New York phenomena in clever ways to amuse native New Yorkers and visitors alike.” Arndt, who was represented by Joanna Volpe at New Leaf Literary & Media, is a graphic designer living in New York. The title is set for June 2020.
Norton Buys MG Bio
For Norton Young Readers, Simon Boughton took world English rights to Ken Mochizuki’s Michi Changes History. The middle grade title is a biography of Michi Nishiura Weglyn. The author’s agent, Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio, said the subject of the book is “a California farm girl who endured the Japanese internment camps during WWII, became a renowned costume/wardrobe designer, then walked away from the glamorous life to research and write a book on the real reasons for the camps, leading to a national movement that changed American history.” The book is slated for spring 2021.
Movie Deals
After a bidding war, Amazon Studios won the option to Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House (Flatiron), an adult fantasy debut that PW starred and called “excellent.” Amazon said the book is “set at an alternative Yale, where the secret societies guard dangerous, magical secrets and ghosts haunt the campus.”
The Red Ribbon by Lucy Adlington (Candlewick) has been optioned by Will Smith’s production company, Overbrook Entertainment. A release about the option said the book was “inspired by the women who sewed to save their lives within the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.”
International Deals
U.K.-based Legend Press acquired Jemma Wayne’s third novel, To Dare. According to the Bookseller, the title from the Women’s Prize–longlisted author is about three women whose “lives collide in a modern story of power, inequality, love, and revenge.” The title is set to release in the U.K. in June 2020.
The British Instagram star known as “the five-minute mum” sold a book to Penguin UK. The Bookseller reported that Daisy Upton’s Give Me Five is a “collection of activities for guilt-free parenting” that “includes over 150 games to help make life easier for those who spend time with little people.” The book, acquired by Holly Harris, is slated for February 2020.
For more children’s and YA book deals, see our latest Rights Report.
