Free Press senior editor Amy Scheibe usually appears in this space as a perspicacious buyer; this time around she's in the happy position of a first novelist, whose initial effort was eagerly preempted for those magic six figures by a colleague,

Elizabeth Beier at St. Martin's Press. Scheibe's debut is called

What Do You Do All Day? and concerns a mother who has just spent five years at home tending to her young children, who must finally face the next act in her life—and whose inclination to go back to work is thrown for a loop when her husband is sent overseas for his job. Agent

Sarah Burnes at Burnes & Clegg made the sale, for world English and audio rights.