Publishers Weekly - September 18, 2017

■ 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.