Deals: Fiction Preempts

Touchstone editor-in-chief Trish Todd has preempted what she says is the next big novel about India, in the tradition of The Far Pavilions and The Jewel in the Crown, via Clare Alexander, who sold U.S. rights. The book is East of the Sun by British author Julia Gregson, and it presents the intertwining stories of a chaperone and her three charges who set sail for India in 1926, in the midst of the Fishing Fleet—the name given to the legions of women who went to India in search of husbands, bringing their secrets and hopes but very little knowledge of the kind of life that waited for them. Pub date is summer 2009; the deal also includes the author's first novel, The Water Horse, which Touchstone will publish in trade paperback at an undetermined date. Orion was the U.K. publisher for Horse.

At Putnam, Amy Einhorn preempted Harry Dolan's Bad Things Happen from Victoria Skurnick at Levine Greenberg in a two-book, world rights deal. The novel finds a mysterious man beginning an affair with his best friend's wife, then happening upon three dead bodies; the book is described as reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, with shades of Harlan Coben.

Crown exec editor Heather Jackson preempted world rights to Debbie Tenzer's first book, Making This World a Better Place, in a deal with Bonnie Solow. Tenzer, the force behind the popular Web site DoOneNiceThing.com, will provide ideas and stories on how anyone, whatever his time or resources, can find a way to do something nice each week. Pub date is spring 2009.

At Shambhala, Eden Steinberg acquired the next book by suburban mom and Zen Buddhist priest Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life, via Ted Weinstein, who sold North American rights. Momma Zen author Miller will combine 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji's summation of the spiritual path with her own modern life story to reveal the continuous opportunities for transformative wisdom in the gritty imperfection of life at hand.

Gerry Howard and Dan Feder at Doubleday have acquired world English rights to Norman Podhoretz's Why Jews Are Liberals via Glen Hartley at Writers Representatives. The follow-up to World War IV, this part-history, part-polemic, part-memoir rejects the usual self-congratulatory explanations in favor of a hypothesis based on tensions within the Jewish community and the Jews' experience in Europe and America during the 20th century. Pub date is spring 2010.

Harmony exec editor John Glusman bought world rights to The Ariadne Objective by Wes Davis via Neil Olson. It tells the story of British Special Operations forces on Crete in WWII who, aided by the Greek resistance, brazenly kidnapped the German general in command of land forces, and stars some of the leading literary lights of the day—Evelyn Waugh, Roald Dahl, Lawrence Durrell and Patrick Leigh Fermor. Davis served for three years as assistant to the director of excavations at Kavousi in eastern Crete, just north of where SOE landed supplies for this daring exploit. Publication is slated for 2011.

Khristina Wentzinger at MacAdam/Cage bought North American rights to Rachel Sherman's first novel, Shooting the Gap, via Emilie Stewart. Sherman's portrait of suburban angst explores the ripple effects of mental illness on a family and the differences in mating and marriage over three generations of women. Sherman's collection of stories, The First Hurt, was published by Open City in 2006. Pub date is 2009.