Little, Brown Nabs Earthly Heartbreaker
In one of her first acquisitions since moving to Little, Brown, Bryn Clark has taken North American rights to paleoclimatologist Summer Praetorius’s The Great Forgetting. Tina Bennett at Bennett Literary negotiated the deal after an auction. Little, Brown said the book, “pitched as Educated meets The Uninhabitable Earth,” is “a braided narrative mapping the accelerating destruction of the Earth onto heartbreaking losses in the author’s own life, particularly her brother’s descent into psychosis, tracking the predictive and restorative power of our physical and emotional archives, and the Earth quite literally losing its memory to climate change.” A pub date has not yet been announced.
Random House Sweet on ‘Honey’
Marie Pantojan at Random House has acquired North American rights to Imani Thompson’s novel Honey. Nicola Chang at David Higham Associates handled the deal. Random House said the book is about “Yrsa, a bored, disillusioned PhD student at Cambridge University who develops a compulsion for murdering bad men, at first justifying her actions under the guise of feminist solidarity, until her all-consuming rage threatens to unravel her from within.” A pub date has not yet been announced.
Flatiron Lights Up for ‘Body Electric’
Julie Will at Flatiron Books has preempted world rights to Manoush Zomorodi’s Body Electric, which the publisher said is the first-ever deep dive into “the physical and mental ramifications of knowledge work.” Based on the author’s reporting for NPR’s TED Radio Hour and a study conducted by the Columbia University Medical Center, the book explores the “growing health crisis” created by the “physiological toll of working behind screens for extended periods” and offers “evidence-based guidance readers can implement immediately to feel better and recalibrate their health.” Daniel Greenberg at Levine Greenberg Rostan brokered the deal. Body Electric is slated for a spring 2026 publication.
Urano Signs Bestselling Venezuelan Author
Suzy Swartz at Urano World Publishing has struck a two-book, world English deal with Venezuelan writer Nacarid Portal. Under the deal, Urano will publish an English-language edition of De mí para mí: la rormenta pasará (From Me to Me: The Storm Will Pass), a book of motivational prose and poetry, in summer or fall 2025. Urano will also publish an English-language edition of the author’s 2016 self-published Amor a cuatro estaciones (Love in Four Seasons) in hopes of, according to the publisher, developing “a greater appetite for Nacarid’s work in the U.S.” Portal was not agented in the deal.
Dial Takes Murray’s Cult Memoir
After an auction, actor Hannah Murray, known for her roles as Gilly in Game of Thrones and Cassie on the British TV show Skins, has sold North American rights to her memoir, The Make-Believe, to Clio Seraphim at Dial Press. Dial said Murray writes about “falling prey to a wellness cult, being confined to a psychiatric hospital, and her journey toward healing,” calling the book “a staggering exploration of the vulnerability of womanhood.” Hillary Jacobson at CAA negotiated the deal on behalf of Harriet Poland. The book is set for a summer 2026 publication.
‘Pyromaniac’ Catches Fire at Viking
Viking executive editor Allison Lorentzen has acquired North American rights to Pyromaniac by Rio Matchett, a finalist for the 2024 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize. Chris Clemans at Janklow & Nesbit negotiated the deal, after an auction, on behalf of Claire Paterson Conrad at Janklow & Nesbit U.K. Viking said the book is “a personal and cultural history of fire” that explores the “author’s experience of clinical pyromania—culminating when, at 18, she set fire to a church and was incarcerated.” A publication date has not yet been announced.
