Short Takes

Judith Curr at Atria and Louise Burke at Pocket jointly bought world rights to a first (untitled) book by TV psychic Jeffrey Wands, in a deal brokered by Al Zuckerman at Writer's House; pub is next spring.... Overlook's big book The Company by Robert Littell was preempted for the movies, via agent Ed Victor, by Sony chairman John Calley and Columbia's Amy Pascal.... A first novel by a former Latina marketing exec, Marisol Konczal, was won at auction by Rene Alegria at Harper's Rayo imprint. It's The Lady, the Chef and the Whore, about a grandmother's lessons on how to be a perfect wife, woman and lover; Sandy Dijkstra sold North American and U.S. Spanish-language rights, for publication next May.... A memoir of a freshman's first year at high school, written pseudonymously by Zoe Trope, was bought by Elise Howard at Harper Children's from David McCormick at Collins McCormick for six figures for North American rights plus audio.... Christopher Rice's two steamy thrillers have already shown that he need not be sold just as the son of Anne but is an author in his own right. Now his latest, Walking Fire, has been signed up by editorial director Jonathan Burnham at Talk Miramax Books. It's a sequel to his last, The Snow Garden, involving some of the same characters some years later. Burnham signed North American rights from Lynn Nesbit at Janklow & Nesbit, and will publish in fall of next year.