You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
The Sophie Hicks Agency takes More of Me by Kathryn Evans, a début novel which will make young adults think about the concept of identity, and what it means to “grow up”. Usborne will publish in the UK. The Half Life of Joshua Jones is the second novel from Danny Scheinmann. A combination of thriller, psychological drama and fairytale, Unbound will publish in March 2016. Anne Cassidy’s The Moth Girls, with Hot Key Books in the UK, is a mystery about two missing girls and their friend. Hellraisers is the first book in the Devil’s Engine trilogy by Alexander Gordon Smith. Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish in December 2015. Veiled by Benedict Jacka is the latest novel in the urban fantasy series featuring Alex Verus, a Camden-based mage. The series is published in the UK by Little, Brown.
Blake Friedmann takes Peter James’ ghost story The House on Cold Hill, with Macmillan in the UK. The Truth About Ava by Sue Moorcroft is about a struggling hat maker who has just got out of a troubled relationship. It is with Avon in the UK. Jack Urwin’s Man Up is an exploration into the toxic effects of masculinity and why suicide is the most common cause of death in men under 50 years old. Icon Books in the UK bought on proposal. Edward Wilson-Lee’s Shakespeare in Swahililand, with HarperCollins in the UK, is about the Bard’s work in Africa. Red Air by Hamilton Wende is a thriller described as Zero Dark Thirty meets Black Hawk Down.
Lorella Belli Literary Agency takes Kirsty Moseley’s New Adult romance Fighting to Be Free, world English rights for which sold in a good six-figure deal to Grand Central Publishing. The book was originally published on Wattpad. Lost Girls by Angela Marsons is the third book in the author’s crime series. Kelly Rimmer’s The Secret Daughter, published by Bookouture, is set in Australia in 1973 at the time of the government’s forced adoption practices. Sophie Jackson’s An Ounce of Hope is the second book in the writer’s romance series. It is with Headline in the UK. Victoria Van Tiem’s Holding Out for a Hero is a romantic dramedy, with Macmillan in the UK.
Lutyens & Rubinstein takes Mark Billingham’s standalone novel Die of Shame, with Little, Brown in the UK. Dead Man’s Blues by Ray Celestin follows private investigator Ida Davis to 1920s Chicago. It is with Mantle in the UK. Lucy Ribchester’s The Amber Shadows, with Simon & Schuster in the UK, is set in 1941 in Bletchley Park. Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller, with Fig Tree in the UK, is about a woman who disappears and her daughter 12 years after the event. William Sutcliffe’s YA novel Concentr8 is with Bloomsbury in the UK.
Conville & Walsh takes Himself by Jess Kidd, a literary speculative crime début set in Ireland. UK and Commonwealth rights sold to Canongate at auction. Canelo founder Michael Bhaskar’s Curation is a non-fiction book which proposes a new business model whereby selection supercedes production. Also in non-fiction is The Danger Zone by Ruben Andersson, about how the world map should be figuratively redrawn. Liz Greenfield and Molly Naylor’s graphic novel If Destroyed Still True is about the summer 15-year-old Grace falls in love for the first time. Joshua Mowll’s graphic novel 6011.7 unfolds the mystery of a Royal Navy ship lost at sea during an ill-fated mission to investigate sea beasts.
Watson, Little takes My Name is Sakula Banga by Emmanuel Jal, a début YA novel described as an African Count of Monte Cristo. Tim Lock’s Taxi to War: Fighting IS on the Frontline is the tale of how the author travelled to Iraq to fight ISIS. Before I Let You In by Jenny Blackhurst has sold to Headline in the UK. Alex Marwood’s psychological suspense The Darkest Secret is with Sphere in the UK. Armadillos by actress Pauline Lynch is the dark narrative of a teenage woman battling with life in contemporary Texas. Legend has world English-language rights.
Hardman & Swainson has Ann Morgan’s début literary thriller Beside Myself about twins who switch identities age six, and one refuses to swap back with catastrophic consequences. It is with Bloomsbury in the UK. Playwright Miranda Emmerson’s début, Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars is a 1960-set literary mystery. Fourth Estate pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada. YouTube star Carrie Hope Fletcher’s début commercial novel On the Other Side, about an 82-year-old woman unburdening her secrets at the point of death, has sold to Sphere here. Heat journalist Isabelle Broom’s début women’s fiction novel, My Map of You, is a coming-of-age story set in Zakynthos. It has sold to Michael Joseph in the UK.
Hhb Agency takes Ben Miller’s The Aliens are Coming! It is a guide to the search for extraterrestrials. World rights are with Sphere. World rights for Peter Gordon’s Vibrant Salads are with Jacqui Small. Georgina Hayden’s Stirring Slowly contains restoring, reviving and rejuvenating recipes. Square Peg has world rights. In The Yoga Kitchen Kimberly Parsons shows how to eat mindfully. Quadrille has world rights. The House in Quill Court by Charlotte Betts is a historical novel. Piatkus has world rights.
Darley Anderson Literary TV & Film Agency takes début action thriller Nothing Short of Dying by Erik Storey. North American rights sold to Scribner for six figures. Defender by G X Todd is a début. UK and Commonwealth rights sold to Headline in a six-figure pre-empt. Emma Kavanagh’s The Missing Hours is a standalone about two girls who go missing. Arrow has UK and Commonwealth rights. The Last Night by Cesca Major is a dual-narrative love story. Corvus has world English rights. Olivia Levez’s YA début The Island is about a teenager cast away on a desert island. World English rights are with Rock the Boat.
Marjacq has supernatural thriller Poison City by Paul Crilley, with Hodder in the UK. Girl at Midnight by Katarzyna Bonda is a Polish bestselling crime novel, the first in a series, about a criminal profiler. Hodder will publish here in 2017. Nick Garlick’s Red Dust Rider is a middle-grade novel set in the Midwest during the Great Depression. The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair tells the biographies of colours. John Murray will publish in the UK. Willow Walk by S J I Holliday is a psychological thriller with Black & White in the UK.
Janklow & Nesbit takes Man Booker Prize-shortlisted The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota, with Picador in the UK. The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Green is a début novel about identity and humanity, set in a world where technology enables people to project their minds into the bodies of animals. It is with Bloomsbury in the UK. Camilla Way’s Watching Edie, with HarperCollins in the UK, is a dark, psychological drama. In non- fiction, Ben Platts-Mills’ Tell Me the Planets was acquired by Fig Tree in the UK after an eight-way auction. The book is about the author’s work with survivors of brain injury and his decade-long friendship with a coder who has partially lost the ability to form new memories. There is an auction ongoing for début writer Nell Stevens’ Bleaker House, an account of how she tried and failed to write a great novel by going to live on an uninhabited island in the Falklands.
WME has The Prince George Diaries by Clare Bennett, an exposé written from the point of view of a diarist. Michael Joseph will publish in the UK. Waiting for the Death Wind by Irish novelist Paul Lynch is a coming-of-age novel rich with comic adventure, magical thinking and pathos featuring 14-year-old Grace Coyle’s odyssey for survival through a famine-riddled 1845 Ireland. Symmetry Breakfast by Michael Zee is a cookbook based on the author’s Instagram feed. An auction is ongoing in the UK and Commonwealth. Jenny Parrot’s Make Do and Mend, written under the pseudonym Kitty Danton, is the first of three Second World War sagas. Orion will publish in the UK. Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks is a practical guide to time and time management. UK rights sold to The Bodley Head after an 11-way auction.
United Agents takes Alain de Botton’s novel The Course of Love, with Hamish Hamilton in the UK. Dawn French’s According to Yes is about a latter-day Mary Poppins who upsets the rigid uptight code of behaviour adhered to by a New York family. Michael Joseph will publish here. Slave Days by Victoria James is a YA/crossover novel, with Pan Macmillan in the UK. Anthony Quinn’s Freya charts the friendship between two women in the 1950s and 1960s. Jonathan Cape will publish in the UK. Graham Swift’s Mothering Sunday: A Romance is with Scribner in the UK. Eleanor Morgan’s Anxiety for Beginners is part memoir and part self-help book, with Bluebird here. Leap In by Alexander Heminsley is about swimming and is with Hutchinson in the UK.
David Higham Associates takes Sarah Pinborough’s supernatural thriller Behind Her Eyes, which is with HarperCollins in the UK. Naomi Alderman’s new novel, The Power, examines a world in which women develop an extraordinary and devastating new power to dramatic global effect. Viking will publish in the UK. The Inheritance by Katie Agnew spans 1930s Japan to London in the present day. It is with Orion here. Owen Jones’ The Politics of Hope is a look at progressive change around the world. Allen Lane acquired on proposal in the UK. Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s Out of Our Minds is a history of the human imagination.
Pollinger Limited has Orchid Summer by naturalist Jon Dunn, about his quest to see all 60 British species of orchid in one summer. Annie Gray’s The Greedy Queen is about the life of Queen Victoria, told through her relationship with food. Profile will publish in the UK. Big Pig, Little Pig is about Jacqueline Yallop’s experience of keeping two pigs at her house in France. The Great Village Show is the latest instalment in Alex Brown’s Tindledale series, with Harper in the UK. Reading Allowed is Chris Paling’s account of his experiences working as a librarian in a provincial library.
Johnson & Alcock takes Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg, a début literary fiction novel with Fourth Estate in the UK. Alone with the Dead by James Nally is the first in a new British detective series, with HarperCollins in the UK. A UK auction is ongoing for columnist and political commentator Suzanne Moore’s as-yet untitled memoir. Poet Hollie McNish’s Nobody Told Me is a memoir of pregnancy and parenthood. Little, Brown will publish in the UK. Chris Russell’s Songs About a Girl is a YA novel. Hodder will publish in the UK.
Mulcahy Associates takes The Spy of Venice, a début novel set in 16th-century London and Venice by Benet Brandreth. World English rights sold to Bonnier. Performing Male is a memoir by comedy writer and actor Robert Webb, and is on submission in the UK. The Ivy Now: The Restaurant and Its Recipes is written by The Ivy Club and restaurant’s maître d’ Fernando Peire. Licence to be Bad by Cambridge economics professor Jonathan Aldred is about the change in morality over the past 40 years and its impact on society. Ithaca is a darkly comic début novel by Alan McMonagle.
Jo Unwin Literary Agency takes Emma Flint’s Little Deaths, a début novel inspired by a true story. UK rights sold at auction to Picador. Jenny Colgan’s The Little Shop of Happy Ever After is about a woman who opens a travelling bookshop in the Scottish highlands. Little, Brown will publish here. Cathy Rentzenbrink’s memoir The Last Act of Love was published by Picador in the UK. My Name is Leon is a début by Kit De Waal about two brothers separated by adoption. Viking won a six-way auction in the UK.
Rogers, Coleridge & White takes Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Café, which shows how the existentialists’ philosophy grew out of their lives, and how their lives embodied their philosophy. Chatto & Windus will publish in the UK. Daniel Beer’s House of the Dead, with Penguin in the UK, is a social and cultural history of exile and imprisonment in Siberia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Chris Cleave’s novel Everyone Brave is Forgiven is with Sceptre in the UK. The Return is a memoir by Hisham Matar of a son’s search for his father. Viking will publish here. Kate Summerscale’s The Wicked Boy is the true story of two young boys who murdered their mother. Bloomsbury will publish in the UK.
Furniss Lawton has S K Tremayne’s Carnhallow, about a woman whose stepson tells her she will by dead by Christmas. HarperCollins has UK and Commonwealth rights. The Sirtfood Diet by Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten is a diet book, with Yellow Kite in the UK. The Writer’s Cut is Eric Idle’s new novella. World English-language rights are with Canelo. Time Travel for Beginners by Catherine Blyth offers solutions to the feeling that there is not enough time in the day. UK and Commonwealth rights are with William Collins.
The Andrew Lownie Agency has Conquerors: How Portugal Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley, with Faber in the UK. No More Champagne: Churchill and his Money by David Lough will be published by Head of Zeus in the UK. Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie is with Hodder in the UK. Catherine Hewitt’s The Mistress of Paris, with Icon in the UK, is a biography of the courtesan the Countess Valtesse de la Bigne. Networks of Resistance: A New History of the German Resistance to Hitler by Danny Orbach is with Houghton Mifflin in the US.
Madeleine Milburn takes Eleanor Oliphant, an uplifting début by Gail Honeyman. It is the subject of an eight-way auction in the UK. If You Knew My Sister by part-time scientist Michelle Adams is a psychological thriller about two sisters. Headline pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights for six figures. The Missing by C L Taylor is about a teenager who goes missing from his home. Avon has UK and Commonwealth rights. Former journalist Helen Hope’s OMG! The Secret Diary of Oliver May Green is the first book in a middle grade series. How Hard Can Love Be? is the second book in Holly Bourne’s YA series The Normal.
A M Heath takes Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster by Karen Lee Street, a novel in which Poe teams up with Inspector Dupin. Oneworld will publish here. House Swap by S L Grey is about a dream vacation in Paris that goes nightmarishly wrong. It is with Macmillan in the UK. Cynan Jones’ Cove is with Granta in the UK. The Lubetkin Legacy by Marina Lewycka is about a man who takes a stranger home to impersonate his dead mother in order not to lose his elegant council flat. Fig Tree has UK rights. This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell is with Tinder Press in the UK.
Felicity Bryan Associates takes The Good Guy by Susan Beale, about a suburban husband and father who constructs a perfect double life. UK and Commonwealth rights sold to John Murray. Breakfast is a Dangerous Meal by Terence Kealey re-examines standard advice for diabetics, with Fourth Estate in the UK. Finbarr Livesey’s Deglobalization is a radical new look at world trade, with Profile in the UK. Three Tigers, One Mountain by Richard McGregor is about the toxic and on-going history of Sino-Japanese relations and the complicated political triangle that occurs when the US is involved. Penguin Press will publish here. Thomas Rid’s The Ride of the Machines is a narrative history of technology, with Scribe in the UK.
Kingsford Campbell takes BBC correspondent and investigative journalist Andrew Hosken’s Empire of Fear, which looks at the rise of the Islamic State through first-hand reporting. Oneworld will publish in the UK. Will Storr’s Selfie combines scientific enquiry and memoir as it explains the “epidemic of narcissism that has engulfed us”. It is with Picador in the UK. Jen Campbell’s The Bookshop Book, with Constable in the UK, is a celebration of bookshops all around the world. Trading floor insider C M Albright’s financial thriller Shadow Banking is with Canelo in the UK. Theodore Brun’s A Mighty Dawn begins a series set in 8th-century Denmark.