Deals

Pitched as The Last Lecture meets Marley & Me, Matt Logelin's Adventures with Maddy: A Memoir of Love, Loss and the Extraordinary Community That Healed Us, went at auction to Amanda Englander at Grand Central. Rachel Sussman and Eve Bridburg of Zachary Shuster Harmsworth brokered the deal for North American rights. In the book, Logelin, who started a blog and founded the Liz Logelin Foundation after his wife died 72 hours following the birth of their daughter, offers advice on, and his own experiences, dealing with grief and loss. Per Grand Central, the auction was “heated,” with seven publishers vying for the book.

Jonathan Galassi at Farrar, Straus & Giroux acquired world rights to Joe Jackson's Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and Five Deadly Weeks in the Race to Conquer the Atlantic, via Noah Lukeman. Jackson (Dead Run) focuses on the experienced pilots—14 of them—who, from September 25, 1926, to May 20, 1927, dominated news coverage about the international competition that the relatively unknown, and little followed, Lindbergh ultimately won. The race, which turned out to be one of the most dangerous in history, saw multiple crashes and the deaths of six of the pilots and, as Jackson chronicles, changed the lives of all those who took part in it. FSG plans to pub in 2011.

Sara Goodman at St. Martin's nabbed North American rights to a paranormal YA trilogy by bestselling romance writer Mary Jo Putney. The books, set during the Regency period in English history (the early 1800s), follow a group of young aristocrats with magical powers who are sent to reform school to be “cured”; in the novel's world, the nobility despise magic. Robin Rue at Writers House brokered the deal.

At Razorbill, Lexa Hillyer also added a YA novel to her list—a debut she won at auction called FE by Brenna Yovanoff. Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary closed the deal during BEA. The story concerns a normal-seeming teenage boy known as a “replacement”—someone put in the place of a human at infancy—who is beckoned back to the dark side and must decide whether to stay in his idyllic little town or return to where he came from. The book is slated for 2010.

In her first acquisition at Avery, editor Rachel Holtzman signed up world rights to the lengthy-titled Free Will and Free Won't: How to Achieve Long-Term Relief from Panic Attacks to Rages, Anxiety to Phobias, Obsessions, Compulsions, and Depression by UCLA research psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz. Susan Rabiner represented Schwartz, who appears on A&E's new show Obsessed; in the book he expands on his program for treating “bad brain urges.” Avery plans to pub in 2011.

Chris Parris-Lamb of the Gernert agency sold world rights to North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams's memoir, Hard Work. Kathy Pories at N.C.-based Algonquin won the book with what Parris-Lamb called “an aggressive” pre-empt. Written with former Sports Illustrated staffer Tim Crothers, Hard Work chronicles Williams's journey from his impoverished beginnings in a broken home in the mountains of North Carolina to his appointment as coach of the UNC basketball team, which won the 2009 national championship.

At Artists and Artisans, Adam Chromy sold North American rights to Donia Bijan's memoir, Maman's Homesick Pie. Andra Miller at Algonquin won the book about the chef's discovery of her mother's pie recipes after her death, at auction. Bijan's mother had fled Iran after being persecuted for running a feminist-minded medical practice, and the pie recipes, all for American standards, represented one of her significant attempts at assimilation.

Jamie Brenner, also of A&A, struck her first YA deal when she sold Wendy Delsol's debut novel, Stork. Jennifer Yoon at Candlewick bought world English rights to the book, which follows an L.A. teen who moves to Minnesota, where she discovers a mysterious cadre of women who can place souls on Earth. Candlewick's slated the book for 2010; Danny Baror is handling translation rights.

Agent Amy Rennert sold Amy Krouse Rosenthal's picture book The Wonder Book to Maria Modugno at HarperCollins Children's Books. Rosenthal, bestselling author of Cookies and Duck! Rabbit!, celebrates language in this collection of poems, palindromes and other wordcraft; Paul Schmid will illustrate. HC is planning to pub in 2010.