Ally Carter MG Series to HMH

Catherine Onder at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt bought North American rights, at auction, to Ally Carter’s first middle grade series. The first title in the two-book deal, The Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Virtue, is slated for fall 2019. HMH said the series was pitched as what would happen “if little orphan Annie went to live with Batman.” The book follows, HMH explained, a girl and her group of “ragtag” friends “as they teach a mysterious billionaire that he has a family worth fighting for.” Kristin Nelson, who has an eponymous shingle, represented Carter.

Dray’s New Historical to Berkley

For Berkley, Amanda Bergeron took world rights, at auction, to Stephanie Dray’s The Women of Chavaniac. Dray (America’s First Daughter) was represented by Kevan Lyon at the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. The novel, Berkley said, explores “the little-known true stories of three extraordinary women separated by time.” The publisher explained that each woman is “connected to a castle in the mountains of France that offered asylum to orphans during WWII and was the birthplace of the Marquis de Lafayette.” The book is set for a 2020 publication.

S&S Kids Gets Dry with Shustermans

Working as coauthors, National Book Award–winner Neal Shusterman and his son Jarrod Shusterman sold a YA novel called Dry to David Gale at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. In it, a catastrophic drought in California forces a crew of teens to “band together when chaos breaks out in their community.” The book, which Andrea Brown at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency sold, is set for October and has already been optioned by Paramount Pictures. Jarrod Shusterman writes for TV and film.

Eulberg Closes Triple at Bloomsbury Kids

For Bloomsbury Children’s Books, Sarah Shumway and Hali Baumstein took North American rights to three new books by Elizabeth Eulberg. The first novel in the deal, a YA called Past Perfect Life, follows a girl whose life, the publisher said, “unravels when she learns that everything she thought she knew about herself and her so-called family is a lie.” Past Perfect is set for spring 2019. The second book in the agreement, which was brokered by Erin Malone at William Morris Endeavor, is a currently untitled middle grade standalone novel slated for fall 2020. The third book in the deal will be the fourth title in Eulberg’s middle grade series the Great Shelby Holmes; it’s set for fall 2019.

Ballantine Burns with Gershell and Littlefield

Until It Burns, by Lauren Gershell and Sophie Littlefield, was acquired in a world rights deal by Shauna Summers at Ballantine. The novel was sold by Jenni Ferrari-Adler and Barbara Poelle at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency; they said the book is about “stakes friendship and murder at the hottest exercise studio on the Upper East Side” and they pitched it as “Big Little Lies meets Primates of Park Avenue.”

Briefs

Joe Gillard sold The Little Book of Lost Words to Lisa Westmoreland at Ten Speed Press. Gillard, who created the popular blog History Hustle, was represented by Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group. Gillard took world rights to the book, which Gottlieb described as a “dictionary for history buffs and word lovers packed with old words that are perfect for expressing almost anything in your modern life.”

Roxane Gay sold the tentatively titled essay collection Tokenism to Katie Helke at MIT Press. The book, MIT said, will touch on the titular subject, defined by the author as “the practice of making a cursory effort to hire or recruit a small number of people from underrepresented groups to satisfy the need for equality, whether that be racial, gender, or other.” Gay (Bad Feminist) is a writer and editor who teaches at Purdue University; she was represented by Maria Massie at Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents.