-Hyperion Nabs Vet Memoir
Foundry's Peter McGuigan closed a major deal at BEA last week, selling North American rights to retired captain Luis Carols Montalvan's memoir, Until Tuesday, to Hyperion for high six figures. Elisabeth Dyssegaard acquired the book, which chronicles Montalvan's difficult return to civilian life after his tour in Iraq. After suffering from severe PTSD—brought on by, among other things, spinal and brain injuries—Montalvan was given a golden retriever service dog named Tuesday. The book, which Dewey coauthor Bret Witter is writing with Montalvan, is about, as McGuigan explained, “the inspiring relationship between man and dog.” Jerry Kalajian at IPG is handling film rights, and Hyperion is planning to publish on Father's Day, 2011.

-Miller Re-Ups at Knopf
The Senator's Wife author Sue Miller has sold her new novel, The Arsonist, to her longtime editor at Knopf, Jordan Pavlin. Pavlin took North American rights for a high six-figure sum in a deal orchestrated by Miller's agent, Jill Kneerim of Kneerim & Williams. Knopf is planning a 2013 publication. In the book, the strained social and class distinctions in a small New England town are brought to the fore when a string of suspicious fires claims the homes of the town's wealthy summer denizens.

-Meloy Kids Around
Maile Meloy (Both Ways Is the Only Way) has signed to do her first children's book, inking a deal with Jennifer Besser at G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers. ICM's Amanda “Binky” Urban sold world rights to The Apothecary, a YA novel set during the cold war that follows a teenage girl who moves to London where a chance meeting with a strange apothecary draws her into a scheme to save the world from nuclear destruction. Ellen Goldsmith-Vein at the Gotham Group is handling film rights.

-Simon Pulse Get 'Virtuosic'
Mandy Hubbard at D4EO Literary sold Jessica Martinez's debut YA novel, Virtuosity, in a two-book deal, at auction, to Simon Pulse, with Anica Rissi taking world rights. The first book is about a virtuoso violinist whose life begins to fall apart when she gets involved in a difficult love affair and develops a nasty drug habit. Simon is planning a fall 2011 release. The deal marks Hubbard's first as an agent at D4EO.

-Reagan Arthur Goes with 'God'
For her eponymous imprint at Little, Brown, Reagan Arthur acquired world English rights to Simon Rich's What in God's Name. Daniel Greenberg at Levine Greenberg brokered the deal for Rich, who's been published in the New Yorker and is a writer for SNL—Rich has the literary claim of being the youngest staff writer ever hired by the long-running NBC sketch comedy show. Rich's next novel, Elliot Allagash, bows from Random House at the end of this month; in What in God's Name he reimagines heaven as a celestial corporation employing incompetent but endearing angels trying haplessly to please their boss.

-Briefs
Erin Nevius at ABA Book Publishing—the American Bar Association, not the booksellers' group—bought North American rights to Arthur L. Rizer's Lincoln's Counsel: Lessons from America's Most Persuasive Speaker. Agent E.J. McCarthy brokered the deal for Rizer, a trial attorney at the Department of Justice and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. In the book, which ABA is planning for April 1, 2011 (to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War), Rizer demonstrates how to become a more persuasive speaker by dissecting the arguments made in some of Lincoln's best-known speeches.

Agent Amy Rennert sold world rights to Bilal Kaafarani and Jane Stevenson's Breaking Away: How to Finish First Through Innovation and Leadership. Mary Glenn at McGraw-Hill bought the book, which Rennert said outlines how business executives can become more innovative leaders and “consistently drive profitable top-line growth.” Kaafarani is a senior v-p at Coca-Cola, and the book will feature interviews with a range of top execs from Ford to Estee Lauder. McGraw-Hill is planning a spring 2011 publication.

Bestselling romance writer Carly Phillips is moving houses, signing to do her new series, Serendipity, at Berkley. Cindy Hwang acquired world English rights to the three-book series, which will introduce readers to the titular town and its local Harrington Mansion. Phillips has written more than 20 novels and was previously published by Harlequin. Book one is slated for October 2010.