Pittman Preempted
Riverhead's Sarah McGrath preempted Ring of Fire: Marriage, Kids and Other Acts of Reckless Abandon by Good Housekeeping contributing editor and blogger Kyran Pittman; Sally Wofford-Girand at Brick House sold world rights. Through essays on love, family, sex, sex after children, money, foreclosure, etc., Pittman, a native of Newfoundland, will reveal what it's like to be a wife, mother and foreigner living in white-picket-fence suburban Arkansas. Pittman's voice is said to conjure writers like Meghan Daum and Sloane Crosley, only married with kids; Riverhead also publishes Crosley and signed her up for a new book a few weeks ago.
Auction to Areheart
Shaye Areheart won an auction for Stacey McGlynn's first novel, Keeping Time, for her imprint at Harmony, via Adam Chromy and Jamie Brenner at Artists and Artisans. The book tells the story of a British septuagenarian whose quest to return an engagement gift from her wartime love brings her to the Long Island home of her quirky American relatives and leads to a cross-country odyssey that changes the lives of all involved. McGlynn holds an M.F.A. in screenwriting from Columbia; so far, six-figure translation deals have been struck in Italy and Germany, and rights have also gone in Brazil and Holland. Harmony has North American rights.
Bantam Takes Series
Bantam editorial director Kate Miciak has acquired U.S. rights to the three remaining titles in Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce whodunit series via Denise Bukowski. The series is centered on an 11-year-old pigtailed detective with a passion for poison who lives in a gothic mansion in 1950s England; Miciak signed on for the first three titles in the series in 2007. The debut title, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, will launch as a Delacorte hardcover in May, and Bradley just delivered the manuscript for the second book, titled The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. Delacorte will release one book in the series annually.
The Four Seasons
Viking publisher Paul Slovak has acquired North American rights to the fourth and concluding volume in Maureen Howard's quartet of novels inspired by the four seasons; Gloria Loomis made the sale. Titled The Rags of Time, the novel will explore a writer's history and the lives imagined in her fiction; Central Park, itself a character in the novel, is the living ecosystem that draws all these lives together. The work will incorporate themes and characters from the three previous books, all of which were published by Viking.
HarperPerennial Takes Two
Jeanette Perez at Harper Perennial bested two other bidders for North American rights to Teddy Wayne's first novel, Kapitoil, via Rosalie Siegel. The book tells the story of a young Middle Eastern man who comes to America to work in a Wall Street investment bank, where he invents a brilliant system to predict oil futures, falls in love and tries to hold on to his moral ideals.
Elsewhere at Harper Perennial, Michael Signorelli bought world rights to Hannah Nordhaus's The Beekeeper's Lament via Stephanie Cabot at the Gernert Company. This is an investigation into the life of one of America's foremost beekeepers, the epidemics that threaten American bee populations, and the role of bees in American agribusiness; the book evolved from an article Nordhaus wrote in High Country News. Pub date is spring 2011.
The Briefing
Pocket executive editor Lauren McKenna acquired North American rights to three books in a new historical romance series by Teresa Medeiros; Andrea Cirillo at the Jane Rotrosen Agency made the sale and the first book will pub in summer 2010.
