Europa Picks ‘In the Orchard’
Europa Editions publisher Kent Carroll has acquired U.S. rights to In the Orchard, the Swallows by Peter Hobbs from Deborah Rogers of Rogers, Coleridge & White. The novel is British author Hobbs’s second; his debut, The Short Day Dying, was a finalist for the Whitbread First Novel Award when it was released by Faber and Faber in 2005. In the Orchard, which Faber and Faber published, to good reviews, in 2012, is described by Europa as “a redemptive fable of love that recalls the works of Paolo Coelho.” Europa has set a February 2014 pub date.
Disney-Hyperion Is Hooked
In what was described as an “aggressive” five-house auction, Rotem Moscovich at Disney-Hyperion bought world English rights to Hook’s Revenge by debut author Heidi Schulz. Brooks Sherman at FinePrint Literary Management handled the deal. Sherman said that in the novel, Captain Hook’s daughter, Jocelyn, “is charged with avenging her father’s death at the jaws of Neverland’s crocodile.” The tale, continued Sherman, “is narrated in the vein of Lemony Snicket—if Lemony Snicket were an irritable, retired pirate who disliked children.” Publication is scheduled for fall 2014.
BenBella Buys Poison Candy
The 2011 trial and conviction of Dalia Dippolito was a cable television dream drama—a jury found her guilty of hiring a hit man to kill her husband. The problem with the plan, among other things, was that the hit man was an undercover cop. Although Dippolito’s attorneys filed an appeal for a new trial this spring, the prosecutor in the first trial, Elizabeth Parker, has sold a book about the case to BenBella Books publisher Glenn Yeffeth, who took world rights in a deal brokered by Michael Wright of Garson & Wright Public Relations. Poison Candy: The Murderous Madam: Inside Dalia Dippolito’s Plan to Kill will be coauthored by crime writer Mark Ebner and will deliver new information on the investigation and trial. A February 2014 publication date is planned.
JournalStone Signs Five for One
JournalStone president Christopher Payne has signed five authors of the Candlelight Writers Group to collaborate on a 100-year-long mystery tale, Century. David Liss, Robert Jackson Bennett, Joe McKinney, Rhodi Hawk, and Hank Schwaeble signed with Payne in the unagented deal, agreeing to develop and write what Payne is calling a multi-era “supernatural noir.” Publication is planned for summer 2014.
