Short Takes

Mira's Amy Moore-Benson signed suspense author Bonnie Hearn Hill for a second three books before the first in an earlier similar deal had even been published, via agent Laura Dail, who sold her world rights. First up of the older batch, next month, is the thriller Intern, and, yes, it does sound a bit like the Chandra Levy case.... Merloyd Lawrence, with her own Perseus imprint, bought a third volume in Esmeralda Santiago's ongoing memoir that began with When I Was Puerto Rican; the new one is What Came After, and Lawrence bought world rights from Molly Friedrich at Aaron Priest, for publication in fall 2004.... A book by investigative journalist Craig Unger called Two Dynasties, which examines the many business and personal links between President Bush's family and Arabia's House of Saud, was preempted by Scribner's Colin Harrison, who paid six figures for North American rights and hopes to get the timely book out before the 2004 presidential election. The agent was Elizabeth Sheinkman at Elaine Markson.... Faye Bender has joined Anderson Grinberg Literary Management as an agent; her last spot was at the Doris Michaels agency, and she began with Nick Ellison; National Book Award finalist Patricia Henley (her latest is In the River Sweet) is a client.... There's a Shakespeare bonanza at Berkley, where Allison McCabe, who is about to publish a first novel called Shakespeare Had a Daughter by Shakespearean scholar Grace Tiffany, about the playwright's youngest daughter, Judith, has just signed a second one, this time about Shakespeare himself. The untitled book was bought from agent Carolyn French at Fifi Oscard, herself a former Shakespeare scholar.