Portes Takes ‘Henry & Eva’ to HC
For HarperCollins, Kristen Pettit took North American rights to two titles in a new middle grade series by Andrea Portes (Anatomy of a Misfit). The modern gothic series, called Henry & Eva, is set in Big Sur and follows the titular brother and sister as they attempt to solve the mystery of their parents’ deaths. Rosemary Stimola, at Stimola Literary Studio, represented Portes and said the story is “alternately funny and moving” as the siblings do their sleuthing “under the watchful eye of their greedy uncle, his tacky wife, and a gaggle of centuries-old ghosts.”

Vanasco Takes ‘Necronym’ to Tin House
Based on her Believer magazine essay “What’s in a Necronym?,” Jeannie Vanasco’s memoir, Glass Eye, was acquired by Masie Cochran at Tin House. Cochran took world rights to the book from Victoria Marini at Gelfman Schneider/ICM Partners. In the essay, which appeared in the summer 2015 issue of the literary magazine, Vanasco writes about being named after a dead sibling and how this fact, in the wake of her father’s death, took on greater significance. Vanasco is an assistant professor of creative nonfiction at DePauw University and has written nonfiction and poetry for a number of outlets, including the New York Times Book Review; Glass Eye, her first memoir, is scheduled for summer 2017.

Stier, Daughter Sell Memoir
Author and former publishing exec Debbie Stier (The Perfect Score Project) sold a memoir, cowritten with her daughter, Daisy Gumin, to Tracy Behar at Little, Brown. In Saving Daisy, Stier and Gumin detail how, in trying to address Gumin’s depression, they wound up on a grueling journey—it included 10 misdiagnoses, seven hospitalizations, and 12 weeks of wilderness therapy—that led them to the conclusion Gumin was not mentally ill. LB said the book “offers a candid account of the devastating cultural epidemic of pathologizing adolescence, and the story of how a mother and daughter found their way back to sanity by standing up to the mental health establishment and saying, ‘No more.’ ” Behar took world rights to the book from Elizabeth Kaplan at the Elizabeth Kaplan Agency.

Harper Kids Visits Gorman’s ‘Black Mountain’
Zac Gorman sold a middle grade illustrated fantasy series called Thisby Thestoop and the Black Mountain to David Linker at HarperCollins. Linker took world rights to two books from Jennifer Linnan, who has an eponymous shingle. Linnan said the series is about a 12-year-old-girl who “becomes gamekeeper at a massive dungeon full of monsters and winds up having to save the princess when a royal tour goes awry.” Gorman, who currently writes the monthly comic Rick and Morty (Oni Press), has worked in television on a number of shows, including as a storyboard artist on the Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall.

Swedish Indie Star Goes to Mira
Bestselling Swedish indie crime writer Emelie Schepp signed a three-book world rights deal (covering nine languages including English, as well as Portuguese in Brazil only) with Kathy Sagan at Mira Books. Through the deal, Mira will release three titles in the author’s series featuring the prosecutor Jana Berzelius, starting with Marked for Life. This novel, Mira said, sold 40,000 copies in Sweden after Schepp self-published it. Schepp went on to sell the novel to a domestic house, and Marked then moved another 70,000 copies. These stats, according to Mira, made Marked the sixth highest-selling e-book in Sweden in 2014. Berzelius is a nightmare-plagued lawyer who harbors dark secrets, and the publisher compared her to heroines such as Lizbeth Salander (from the Millennium series) and Saga Noren (from the Danish/Swedish TV series The Bridge). Marked is set for a summer 2016 global release, with the second book in the series, White Tracks, set for winter 2017.

Lamb Takes Harper’s Debut
At Scribner, David Lamb took North American rights to Baird Harper’s currently untitled novel in stories. Harper, who has an M.F.A. from the University of Montana, was represented by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic. The book, salted for May 2017, uses a drunk-driving accident in a small Illinois town as its jumping off point and explores how the accident affects the various locals. Lamb explained that the driver’s release from prison years later “sets into motion a cold-blooded revenge plot that forces readers to confront the complexities of human loyalty.” Harper’s fiction has appeared in the 2009 and 2010 editions of Best New American Voices (Mariner Books); he also won the 2014 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest.