Trident Scores Two
Eileen Cope at Trident Media Group has just closed a six-figure world rights deal with Amy Cherry at Norton for Consequential Strangers: The Importance of People Who Don't Seem to Matter. Authors Melinda Blau and Karen L. Fingerman will analyze how cultural change and technology have elevated the importance of peripheral relationships and contend that these relationships are, in fact, vital to our health and well-being. Blau collaborated on the bestselling Secrets of the Baby Whisperer (Ballantine, 2001) and Fingerman is a professor of psychology at Purdue. Tentative pub date is spring 2009.
Trident's Scott Miller made a major four-book world rights deal with Ben Sevier at Dutton for author Marcus Sakey, whose debut thriller, The Blade Itself, Sevier edited for St. Martin's Minotaur. The four new Sakey books are all untitled at the moment and the first book should pub in 2009; NAL will publish in mass market following the Dutton hardcovers. The Blade Itself was a Book Sense pick as well as a New York Times Editor's Choice.
S&S Signs Silver
Marisa Silver has sold a new novel, The God of War, to Denise Roy at Simon & Schuster via agent Henry Dunow, who sold world rights. Set in a California desert backwater in 1978, the novel follows a 12-year-old boy struggling with the guilt and responsibility of a restless and misguided mother as well as a mentally handicapped brother whom he believes he has grievously injured. Silver, a featured writer in the New Yorker's inaugural debut fiction issue, is the author of the novel No Direction Home and a book of stories, Babe in Paradise. Pub date for The God of War is June 2008.
Three for North Patterson
Richard North Patterson has just signed a deal for three more novels with John Sterling at Henry Holt via Fred Hill at Fred Hill Bonnie Nadell. The first book is a novel of international intrigue set largely in Africa; pub date is 2009. The second is a psychological suspense novel, to pub in 2010, and the third novel, about a controversial trial, is scheduled for 2011. Holt has world rights, and Macmillan will pub all three in the U.K.
Fiction and Nonfiction for SMP
Nichole Argyres at SMP has bought world rights to a debut novel by Roy Freirich titled Winged Creatures via Svetlana Katz at Janklow & Nesbit. The story of how a shooting rampage in a small American town affects the lives of witnesses, bystanders and families of the victims is soon to be a movie starring Forrest Whitaker and Kate Beckinsale. St. Martin's will publish Winged as a trade paperback original to coincide with the film's 2008 release, as it did Rex Pickett's Sideways in 2004.
Elsewhere at SMP, Phil Revzin has acquired North American rights to Hope, Not Fear: A Jewish Renaissance by Edgar M. Bronfman and Beth Zasloff via Dan Mandel at Sanford Greenburger. The book sets forth the philanthropist and Hillel chairman's vision of a diverse Jewish community, and pub date is early 2008.
Next from Ryan Hyde
Knopf's Michelle Frey has acquired world rights to Pay It Forward author Catherine Ryan Hyde's next YA novel, titled The Day I Killed James. The book focuses on a beautiful high school senior who runs away from home after her neighbor kills himself because of unrequited love for her, and finds redemption through helping a younger girl who has experienced a tragedy. Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown made the deal. Pub date is summer 2008.
The Minds of Elephants
Jean E. Thomson Black at Yale University Press has acquired world English rights to Gay Bradshaw's Elephant Breakdown: Animals in Crisis, Humanityin Charge via Anne Borchardt at the Borchardt Agency. Bradshaw, president and cofounder of the International Association for Animal Trauma and Recovery, will use elephants as a lens through which to view human treatment of and attitudes toward both wild and domesticated animals, and will argue that humans are not unique in terms of what we define as emotion, self-awareness, intelligence and even consciousness. Delivery date is early next year; no pub date yet.
The Briefing
Dennis Loy Johnson at Melville House has acquired world rights to A. M. Rosenthal's Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case via agent Andrew Blauner. First published 40 years ago, the book recounts the story of one of the most oft-cited murders in U.S. history. It is the only book ever written by New York Times editor Rosenthal, who died last year; this paperback edition will include an introduction by Times columnist Samuel Freedman. Pub date is January 2008.... Ellen Archer and Pamela Dorman at Voice have acquired U.S. rights to Gil McNeil's Divas Don't Knit via U.K. publisher Bloomsbury. This novel centers on a young widowed mother's new life refurbishing an old wool store in an English seaside town. Voice will publish in fall 2008 or winter 2009.
