Riverhead Grabs Straub’s Sophomore Novel

Hyped author Emma Straub, whose forthcoming debut novel Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures is publishing next month, sold world rights to her second novel, The Good Face, to her current editor at Riverhead, Megan Lynch. Agent Jenni Ferrari-Adler at Union Literary brokered the deal for Straub, whose first book, the short story collection Other People We Married, was released by Riverhead in February. Straub is an indie bookseller—she works part-time at Brooklyn’s BookCourt—and a regular on the New York literary scene. Laura Lamont has grabbed a number of positive plugs—The Millions called it “one of the most anticipated books of 2012,” and New York magazine included it in a “must read” list for fall. The Good Face follows a family’s vacation in Mallorca, Spain, and is set for 2014.

Barbara Closes Double for Perez

Agent Stephen Barbara, at Foundry Literary + Media, completed two deals for author Marlene Perez last week. In the first, he closed a world English rights deal with Orbit’s Devi Pillai, who bought three books: Strange Fates, Perez’s first urban fantasy for adults, and its two planned sequels. (Perez writes the long-running paranormal teen series Dead Is.) Barbara said this new series blends “elements of Greek myth with forbidden romance, against the backdrop of Minnesota’s magical underworld”; it follows a son trying to seek revenge on the three sisters who murdered his mother. Strange Fates is set for early 2013.

In the second deal, Barbara sold North American rights to the eighth book in the Dead Is series to its current publisher, the Graphia imprint at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Julie Tibbott acquired Dead Is Just a Dream, which will be the first in the series to appear in hardcover; it’s scheduled for fall 2013. The books are about sisters who live in a town called Nightshade, Calif., prone to weird goings-on.

Da Capo Gets Some ‘Sugar’

Lissa Warren, for Da Capo, bought world English rights to Doug Whynott’s The Sugar Season. Regina Ryan, at Regina Ryan Publishing, represented Whynott (A Unit of Water, a Unit of Time). The book, slated for spring 2014, examines the maple sugaring industry, which is, Da Capo said, one of the country’s “oldest agricultural crafts.”