S&S Lands Historian’s ‘Love Story’

S&S CEO Jonathan Karp has acquired North American rights to Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, which is set for publication in April 2024. The deal was brokered by Amanda Urban at CAA. S&S said the book is “part biography, part memoir, and part history,” adding that it shares the emotional journey the bestselling author and her late husband of 42 years, Richard “Dick” Goodwin (an architect of John F. Kennedy’s “New Frontier”), embarked upon before his death in 2018: opening more than 300 boxes of his letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that had gone unexamined for decades. Karp called the book the “most personal and profound work of history” the prolific Goodwin has ever written.

 

Barker Sells ‘Soul’ to Putnam

In an exclusive submission, Putnam publisher Sally Kim has acquired North American rights to Susan Barker’s novel Old Soul. The deal was handled by Emma Paterson at Aitken Alexander (with U.K. rights going to Helen Garnons-Williams at Fig Tree after an auction). Putnam called the book a genre-bending novel that’s “part literary horror, part thriller” about “the brutal lengths one person will go, across several centuries, to stay alive.” A simultaneous U.S. and U.K. publication is expected in early 2025.

Dorman Plots an Indian ‘Succession’

After an auction, Jeramie Orton at Pamela Dorman Books landed North American rights to Trisha Sakhlecha’s U.S. debut, Last Resort. The two-book deal was brokered by Ariele Fredman at United Talent Agency on behalf of Jonny Geller and Viola Hayden at Curtis Brown U.K. In the novel, which the publisher described as “Indian Succession meets Agatha Christie murder mystery,” a wealthy family gathers on a remote Scottish island to hear their patriarch announce a succession plan for his billion-dollar Delhi-based company. The book will be published in 2025.

Graydon Nabs Lecoat’s Latest

Susan Swinwood at Graydon House has acquired North American rights for Jenny Lecoat’s Beyond Summerland, the author’s second novel following her bestselling debut, The Girl from the Channel Islands. The deal was brokered by Fiona Brownlee at Polygon with Lisa Highton at Jenny Brown Associates. Set in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, after Liberation Day in 1945, Graydon said, the book follows two young women at the center of a mystery that pits them first against each other, then together against family and neighbors alike as suspicions come to a boiling point. Beyond Summerland is set for July 2024.


Burnham’s Debut Trilogy Goes to DAW

DAW Books executive editor Navah Wolfe acquired world English rights to queer, nonbinary screenwriter Sophie Burnham’s Sargassa, the first book of a trilogy from the debut author. The three-book deal was brokered by Maria Napolitano at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. Set in an alternate North America called Roma Sargassa—where the Roman Empire never fell—DAW said the novel takes readers into a landscape of “political intrigue, queer romance, and impending revolution.”


Gallery Gets Lost in Gibson Memoir

Gallery Books executive editor Natasha Simons has acquired North American and open market rights at auction to a memoir by pop icon Debbie Gibson. Yfat Reiss Gendell at YRG Partners handled the deal. In the book, Gallery said, Gibson “reflects on her hard-won journey as a pioneering young female singer-songwriter-producer and Broadway star” and “connects her journey to that of the audience who grew up with her.”