Kensington Bingeing on Romance
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 8/5/2002
No fewer than three major deals, two of them into seven figures, were made by different editors at Kensington in the past week to secure the future services of some of their stalwart writers of romance for women. Editorial director Kate Duffy kept veteran Janet Dailey for three more of her Calder series in hardcover, plus a mass market paperback original, and, in a separate North American rights deal with the same agent, Richard Curtis, bought more than 50 backlist love stories, many of them long unavailable. Zebra editorial director John Scognamiglio made another seven-figure deal, for three new romantic suspense tales by bestseller Lisa Jackson; this was a world-rights deal made with Robin Rue at Writers House. And executive editor Ann LaFarge at Zebra paid a high six figures for four new books by Heather Graham (who writes as Shannon Drake); two of them will be vampire titles, the others historical romances. The agent on this deal, also world rights, was Aaron Priest.
