DEAL OF THE WEEK

Reid Re-ups at Putnam

Bestseller and Booker Prize longlistee Kiley Reid (Such a Fun Age) sold Come and Get It to her standing publisher, Putnam. Sally Kim took North American rights to the novel, slated for January 2024, from William Morris Endeavor’s Claudia Ballard. Putnam said Come and Get It is “a provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students” that paints “a fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption, and reckless abandon.”

Ward Descends at Scribner

Scribner’s Kathy Belden bought world English rights to Let Us Descend, by two-time National Book Award winner and MacArthur fellow Jesmyn Ward. Scribner will publish the novel in October and described it as a “reimagining of American slavery.” Let Us Descend is Ward’s first work of historical fiction and follows an enslaved teenager named Annis who, after being sold by her white father, is led on foot to plantations and a slave market in the South. Scribner added that the novel melds “elements of Dante’s Inferno, magical realism, and slave narratives” as it explores “what lies beyond this world: in our lived experiences and after our deaths.” Ward was represented by Rob McQuilkin at Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents.

Åkerström Goes to Morrow

For six figures, William Morrow’s Asanté Simons took U.S., Canadian, and open market rights to two books by Lola Akinmade Åkerström (In Every Mirror She’s Black). The first, her sophomore effort, is a currently untitled novel due out this fall that follows, Morrow said, “the intertwined, messy lives of three Black women, all immigrants in Sweden, as they navigate their own personal struggles and the prejudices of Swedish society.” Jessica Craig at Craig Literary represented Åkerström.

Bloomsbury Embraces Kelly’s ‘Liberals’

For Bloomsbury, Anton Mueller nabbed world rights to Joseph Kelly’s The Liberals: How America Learned to Tell the Truth, Beat the Fascists and Create a Free World. Bloomsbury said the book, slated for winter 2025 and sold by Jacqueline Flynn at Joelle Delbourgo Associates, examines “America’s culture wars of the 1920s and ’30s and reveals the heroic tale of a second generation of founders—activists, writers, artists, publishers, professors, jurists, and journalists—who defeated the forces of fascism to save American democracy.”


Cox Sells ‘Missy’ Memoir

Aimee Meredith Cox, a professor of anthropology at NYU, sold North American rights to the memoir What Killed Missy? to Allison Lorentzen at Viking in a preempt. The book traces the author’s upbringing in Ohio with her best friend, Margaret “Missy” Allen, and their ensuing lives, leading up to Allen’s murder at the hands of her boyfriend in 2008. The publisher said the book explores “the interlocking systems of racism, misogyny, and violence that adversely affect Black women in America.” The Cheney Agency’s Adam Eaglin represented Cox.


Sourcebooks Gets ‘Goth’ Guide

Sourcebooks’ Erin McClary nabbed world English rights to Goth Girls Guide to Travel, the latest by The Science of Serial Killers coauthors Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl. They were represented by Stacey Kondla at the Rights Factory, and the book, the publisher explained, is a travel guide detailing “the locations of horror films and books, true crime, and dark history found throughout America, with a female bent.”