Evans Goes with Baron

Bestselling British author Nicholas Evans, whose The Horse Whisperer was an international sensation in 1995, has moved for a two-book deal to Penguin Putnam, remaining with Putnam and Dutton president Carole Baron, who first broke him out in this country when she was at Delacorte/Dell. The first of the two new books, as yet untitled, will be out from Putnam in hardcover in 2004. Baron made the North American rights deal with London agent Caradoc King at A.P. Watt. The author said, "It's wonderful to have a chance to work again with Carole. It was she who originally had faith in me as a first-time novelist." Evans has written two other books since his first big success, The Loop (1998) and The Smoke Jumper (2001), both of which sold strongly, though on a lower level than his first. He was a journalist and TV filmmaker before turning to fiction, and Whisperer became a very successful film, after making a big movie sale before publication.