Cassandra King, married to bestselling novelist Pat Conroy (who has his own new book out next month; see p. 41) has signed with her publisher Hyperion for a second book, after her first, The Sunday Wife, scored five printings to reach 100,000 copies in print. Her editor, Leslie Wells, signed the new one, to be called The Same Sweet Girls, on the basis of a description over lunch. It's about a group of women approaching their 50s who meet annually at a beach house in Alabama, and focuses on the 30-year stories of three of them. Wells bought world English, serial and audio from agent Marly Rusoff and plans to publish in summer 2004. Meanwhile, King is off on a big book tour for her first book and will share the spotlight with Conroy at a number of stops on his own tour.