■ Riverhead Tests Ramirez’s
Recall
Buying North American rights at auction,
Courtney Young took Steve Ramirez’s
popular science book
Project Total Recall.
Ramirez, a neuroscientist and assistant
professor at Boston
University, was represented in the deal by
Sarah Levitt at Aevitas Creative Management. She said the book “offers a
gripping exploration of how new tools
for controlling memory are reframing
everything scientists thought they knew
about memory and the mind.”
■ Rosenberg Bio to SMP
In a six-figure acquisition, Charles
Spicer at St. Martin’s Press bought U.S.
and Canadian rights to a currently untitled biography of Ethel Rosenberg by
Anne Sebba ( That Woman: The Life of
Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor). In
1953, Rosenberg became the first woman
executed by the U.S. government in
nearly 90 years for a
crime (espionage)—
one that she was
widely believed not to
have committed. The
book, SMP said, will
explore Rosenberg’s
fate and how her case
resonates today. Rosenberg’s story, the
publisher explained, “is a love story, a spy
story, a story of betrayal, and a story of
government overreacting at a time of fear
and hysteria,” particularly relevant “at a
time of world tension and conspiracy
rumors, focused on a resurgent Soviet
Union and a nation once again deeply
divided.” Clare Alexander at Alexander
Aitken represented Sebba.
■ Lauren Goes to Gallery
Bestseller Christina Lauren sold her first
work of women’s fiction to Adam Wilson
at Gallery Books. Lauren, the pen name
for the writing team of Christina Hobbs
and Lauren Billings, has written titles in
a number of other genres, including
romance, YA, and paranormal. Gallery,
which is Lauren’s longtime publisher,
took world rights to Love and Other Words
and has scheduled the book for an April
2018 release. The book is told in alternating timelines, Gallery said, and follows
“childhood sweethearts who reunite after
a decade” with “many unresolved issues.”
Holly Root, who has an eponymous shingle, represented Lauren.
■ First Second Goes to the
Wolves
Mark Siegel, editorial and creative direc-
tor at First Second, took world rights to a
children’s graphic work by Peter McCarty
titled Five Wolves. The book, which is
slated for 2020 and
was sold by Holly
McGhee at Pippin
Properties, features
five wolves and a num-
ber of other creatures
and humans (includ-
ing a princess, a dragon, and multiple
cats). McCarty is a children’s book author
and illustrator (Hondo & Fabian), and Sie-
gel called this title his masterpiece, noting
that it features “cannons and a storm at
sea, language play for the ages, and a dar-
ing, ambitious fantasy that truly resists
being put in any box.”
■ Kick Kennedy Novel
Nabbed by Berkley
In a two-book deal, Berkley executive editor Kate Seaver bought world English
rights to a currently untitled debut novel
about Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy . Author
Kerri Maher, who
was represented by
Margaret O’Connor
at Innisfree Literary,
follows the oldest
daughter of Joseph
and Rose Kennedy
during the family’s time in London (when
Joseph was a U.S. ambassador) through
World War II. During the war, the publisher said, “Kick must decide where her
true loyalties lie: with love or with family.”
Kick later died in a plane crash at age 28.
Maher has an M.F.A. from Columbia
University.
■ Lewis Brings ‘Men’ to
Morrow
Marjorie Herrera Lewis sold world
rights to her novel When the Men Were Gone
to Lucia Macro at William Morrow.
Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger, who
brokered the deal, said
the book is based on
the true story of a Texas
woman named Tylene
Wilson, who became
a high school football
coach in the 1940s,
despite heavy opposition, in order to
keep her students from going offtofight
in World War II. Somberg pitched the
book as “a cross between Friday Night
Lights and The Girls of Atomic City.” Film
rights to the title have been optioned by
the management and production company
Writ Large.
Deals
By Rachel Deahl
Billings (l.) and Hobbs
McCarty
Lewis
Maher
Ramirez
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