B’bury ‘Engineers’ Wagner
Bloomsbury took world rights to Erica Wagner’s The Chief Engineer: Washington Augustus Roebling and the Brooklyn Bridge. In the book, Bloomsbury said, Wagner, the former literary editor of the Sunday Times, tells the story of the construction of the New York landmark. The project fell to Roebling after his father, who designed the bridge, died suddenly. The book, the publisher continued, explores Roebling’s largely uncovered military record (fighting in the Civil War) and his “extraordinary stamina and commitment to a project initiated by his demanding father.” Coinciding with the book deal is news that a film about the bridge is in production; Brooklyn Bridge, starring Daniel Radcliffe and directed by Douglas McGrath (Emma), is forthcoming from Goldcrest Films. In the U.S., George Gibson acquired the book, while Bill Swainson bought rights in the U.K.; agent Antony Harwood brokered the deal.
Iowa Grad ‘Marvels’ for Ecco
Leslie Parry sold her debut novel, Church of Marvels, to Lee Boudreaux at Ecco, who preempted the book in a mid-six-figure deal. Parry, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, was represented by Claudia Ballard at William Morris Endeavor. The novel, which is set for a summer 2015 release, brings together three overlapping stories that take place in 1890s New York. Ecco said the book follows “a missing Coney Island sideshow performer, an abandoned baby, and a woman trapped in an insane asylum.” Canadian rights have been acquired by Iris Tupholme at Harper Canada.
47North Gets ‘Marked’ by Fine
For 47North, Amazon’s science fiction/fantasy/horror imprint, David Pomerico nabbed world English rights to Sarah Fine’s Marked. The novel is the first installment in a paranormal adult romance series, and Fine’s agent, New Leaf Literary & Media’s Kathleen Ortiz, described it as “Grey’s Anatomy meets Ilona Andrews.” The series follows a female paramedic who, Ortiz said, spends her nights “ferrying the dead to the underworld.” Fine signed a two-book deal, and Marked is set for a 2014 release. The novel has also been preempted in Germany.
Showalter to Harlequin Teen
In a six-figure deal, bestseller Gena Showalter sold a new series to Natashya Wilson at Harlequin Teen. Wilson took world rights to two books from Deirdre Knight at the Knight Agency. The currently untitled series is, Harlequin said, about a “dangerous rivalry for souls and star-crossed love” that is “set in a world where real life begins after death.” Showalter has written numerous series, including Lords of the Underworld and Alien Huntress.
HC Children’s Buys Catalyst Trilogy
Martha Mihalick at HarperCollins’s Greenwillow Books bought North American rights to a trilogy called the Key to the Catalyst by Kent Davis, an actor, playwright, and game designer. The series marks Davis’s fiction debut; he has also written six tabletop gaming books. Susanna Einstein at the Einstein Thompson Agency represented Davis. The first title in the series, A Riddle in Ruby, is slated for fall 2015. Einstein said the series is set in an era called the Chemistral Age, when “magically augmented alchemy and chemistry have thrust an alternate version of 1700’s Colonial America forward into industrialization.” The series’ heroine, 13-year-old Aruba “Ruby” Teach, is a smuggler’s daughter and “picklock prodigy,” and in book one, she and her servant, Cram, must “navigate a world filled with cobalt gearbeasts, alchemical automatons, and devilish secret societies.”
