HC Kids' Gets 'Divergent'
In a deal she described as a “major” pre-empt, agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary sold a three-book YA series to Molly O'Neill at HarperCollins's Katherine Tegen Books. O'Neill took world rights to the series by debut author Veronica Roth; book one is called Divergent. Stampfel-Volpe said the dystopian thrillers were pitched as The Hunger Games meets The Matrix.
SMP Leads with Jensen
Hope Dellon at St. Martin's Press pre-empted North American rights to Nancy Jensen's novel, The Sisters. The book, which will be SMP's lead title for 2011, follows three generations of women forever affected by an incident in Kentucky in the 1920s. Lisa Gallagher at Sanford J. Greenburger brokered the deal.
Somerville's 'Sense'
Patrick Somerville sold his new novel, Good Sense, to Reagan Arthur for her imprint at Little, Brown. Arthur took world rights to the book, which follows a young man on the run from his past and a doctor re-evaluating her life after a violent incident; Brettne Bloom at Kneerim & Williams did the sale.
Rodale Gets 'Masterly' in the Kitchen
Rodale's Julie Will bought North America rights to the MasterChef Cookbook, the official companion title to Fox's upcoming cooking competition show, MasterChef. Will bought the book at auction from Reveille LLC. The show, which debuts on July 29, is produced by Gordon Ramsay (who also stars in Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares) and features the gruff restaurateur judging amateur cooks as they face off in various orchestrated culinary battles. The book will include information about the contestants as well as more than 100 of their recipes. MasterChef is currently a hit show in Australia, where its spinoff cookbook has also become a bestseller.
Zombie Killer
Jaime Costas at Gallery Books bought world rights, at auction, to Max Brallier's choose-your-own-adventure—style humor novel, Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? The book puts the reader in the shoes of its hero—a 20-something 9-to-5er who's forced to fight an onslaught of roaming zombies after the end of the world. Brallier (Reasons to Smoke) was represented by Jason Allen Ashlock at Movable Type Literary, and Ashlock said that although the book is being planned as a print title, he is currently in talks with game developers and thinking about an e-book that would be more of an app. Zombie Apocalypse is scheduled for February 2011.
Briefs
Jessica Regel at Jean V. Naggar sold world English rights to Emily Danforth's YA novel, Lucky Human, to Alessandra Balzer at Balzer + Bray. Danforth has an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Montana, and the book, also set in Montana, follows a girl whose family sends her to a gay conversion camp.
John Glusman, at Harmony, bought world rights to Saima Wahab's In My Father's Country. Wahab is an Afghan-American who worked as a Pashto interpreter (Pashto is spoken in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan) and went into remote Afghan villages where she tried to work with locals as something of a goodwill ambassador for the U.S. Richard Pine at Inkwell Management brokered the deal, and the book is scheduled for spring 2012.
Renée Sedliar at Da Capo bought world rights to Olivier Said and Chef MikeC.'s Kitchen on Fire's Break the Recipe Habit! The Quintessential Guide to Becoming a Great Home Chef. Said (a restaurateur) and MikeC. (a caterer/cooking instructor) own the Berkeley, Calif., Kitchen on Fire cooking school, best known for teaching people how to be top-notch home cooks in 12 sessions.
