MCD Lands Pulitzer Winner

Sean McDonald, publisher of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux imprint MCD Books, has acquired world rights to The Wayfinder, a novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson (The Orphan
Master’s Son). Warren Frazier at John Hawkins and Associates negotiated the deal. MCD said the book, set in the Polynesian islands at the height of the Tu’i Tonga Empire, “tells the story of a young girl who leaves her remote island home to travel across the Pacific to the heart of the Tongan Empire to forge a new fate for herself and her people.” The Wayfinder is scheduled for a fall 2025 publication.

Clark’s New Thriller Goes to Landmark

Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks’ Landmark imprint has taken North American rights to The Ghostwriter, a thriller by Julie Clark (The Lies I Tell). Mollie Glick at CAA represented the author. Sourcebooks said the novel, set in Southern California in both the 1970s and the present, follows “a struggling ghostwriter who is hired to finish her legendary father’s last book—a story that will finally force him to tell the truth about the murders that have haunted their family for 50 years.” Landmark is planning a June 2025 release.

Berkley Wins Bestselling German Trilogy

After an auction, Berkley editorial director Cindy Hwang has taken world English rights to German author Mona Kasten’s bestselling Maxton Hall trilogy: Save Me, Save You, and Save Us. First published by German new adult imprint Lyx in 2018, the novels have sold more than 2.5 million copies in German and have been adapted for the Amazon Prime German-language TV series Maxton Hall—The World Between Us, which has become one of the most popular series on the platform worldwide. Flavia Viotti at the Bookcase Agency brokered the deal, representing German publisher Bastei Luebbe.

Pelayo’s ‘Ghosts’ Haunt Primero Sueño

Yezanira Venecia at Primero Sueño has acquired world English- and Spanish-language rights to Cynthia Pelayo’s horror anthology Ghosts of Where We Are From. Lane Heymont at the Tobias Literary Agency brokered the deal. Heymont said the anthology includes some of the biggest Latinx authors in the genre, including Agustina Bazterrica, Isabel Cañas, Ananda Lima, Juan Martinez, Daniel José Older, Mónica Ojeda, and Alex Segura. Pelayo is the first Latinx person to win the coveted Bram Stoker Award. Publication is anticipated in late 2025 or early 2026.


Bestselling Duo Brings Fantasy Epic to Tor

In a seven-figure preempt, Stephanie Stein at Tor Books has taken world rights (excluding Germany and France) to a series by fantasy author duo Ilona Andrews. Nancy Yost of the Nancy Yost Literary Agency brokered the three-book deal. Tor described the first book in the series, Maggie the Undying, as Game of Thrones meets Outlander and said it follows Maggie, who mysteriously wakes up in the kingdom of Rellas, “which she recognizes immediately from the pages of an unfinished dark fantasy series she’s been obsessively reading and rereading while waiting years for the final novel.” Ilona Andrews is the pen name of a wife-and-husband writing team whose books, including the Kate Daniels and Innkeeper Chronicles series, have sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide. Maggie the Undying will publish in fall 2025.


Dutton Signs Debut Queer Romantasy

Charlotte Peters at Dutton has acquired North American rights to debut author Alexandra McCollum’s The Midnight Cottage. Peter Knapp at Park & Fine Literary and Media handled the deal. Dutton said the book is “a queer cozy romantasy” about “a prickly accountant and his eccentric roommate” who must face “a malevolent magical entity and an impending family wedding that force them to finally confront what they mean to one another.” A pub date has not been announced.