Krauss Closes Double at Rodale
Pam Krauss, publishing director and v-p at Rodale, bought North American rights to a new book by Dr. Pamela Peeke called Unhooked: Trick Your Brain and Free Your Mind from Food Obsessions, Addictions and Overeating. Andrea Barzvi at ICM brokered the deal for Peeke, who is co-writing with frequent ghost writer Mariska van Aalst (a former acquiring editor at Rodale). The book, Rodale says, taps into one of the "hot-button weight loss issues of our time," exploring how we can de-program ourselves from relying on a fatty diet full of processed foods. The book will offer a "life-long, three stage plan" to undo the urge to keep eating food high in sugar and fat. Peeke, who's written a number of bestselling weight loss books, including Fight Fat After Forty, is the chief medical correspondent for Discovery Communications' lifestyle cable network, Discovery Fit and Health. Unhooked is scheduled for May 2012.
In a second acquisition, Krauss took U.S. and Canadian rights to Keepers: Simple, Essential Weeknight Recipes and Tips to Savor and Share. Agent William Clark handled the deal for authors Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion. Brennan and Campion are both former Saveur editors; Brennan has won two James Beard awards for her food journalism, and Campion, books editor at Glamour, created the popular food/family blog devilandegg.com. Clark said the cookbook offers "realistic" recipes for people who want to make tasty and nutritious meals during the week.
Mlynowski Looks for Happy Endings with Scholastic
Sarah Mlynowski, author of the YA series Magic in Manhattan, closed a four-book deal for a new middle-grade series called Whatever After. Agent Laura Dail sold world English rights to Ann-Marie Anderson at Scholastic; the first book is set for a summer 2012 publication. The new series follows a girl who, with her younger brother, is thrown into a series of famous fairy tales where she must help the main characters find their happy endings. The first book will take a revisionist stab at Snow White.
Doubleday/Talese Nabs 'Cousins'
Ronit Feldman at Doubleday/Nan A. Talese bought North American rights to Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer's First Cousins, an examination of the enduring relationship and tense rivalry between Eleanor and Alice Roosevelt. Alice, whose married name was Longworth, was Teddy Roosevelt's oldest child, and Eleanor, born the same year, was a niece of the 26th president. The 2015-slated book—its subtitle is The Untold Story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth—will chart the tumultuous connection the two maintained as, per the publisher, "two of the most powerful American women of the 20th century." Peyser is a former Newsweek staffer who is currently at Budget Travel, while Dwyer is chief operating officer at the educational advisory company School Choice International. Ethan Bassoff and Richard Pine, at Inkwell Management, handled the deal for Peyser and Dwyer.
Briefs
Brandon Proia at PublicAffairs took world English rights to K. Eric Drexler's Radical Abundance, a technology book about nanoscale engineering. Drexler has written extensively for academia on the subject of nanotechnology; for a general audience, he wrote the 1986 book, Engines of Creation, which Bantam published. Loretta Barrett, at Barrett Books, brokered the deal.
Tamara Ireland Stone's debut YA novel Mobius, which we reported sold to Disney-Hyperion for six figures in March, is headed to the big screen. Michelle Weiner at CAA sold dramatic rights to the book, about a 16-year-old girl who meets a time-traveling boy, to CBS Films, with Robin Schorr attached to produce. The book has been retitled as well--it's now called Time Between Us.
