Wallace, Bilyeau Land at Touchstone
Big Fish author Daniel Wallace sold his latest, The Kings and Queens of Roam, to Touchstone’s Sally Kim. Markus Hoffmann at Regal Literary brokered the North American rights deal. The novel, which is scheduled for spring 2013, has already been optioned by the same production company that adapted Big Fish (Wallace’s debut); it follows two sisters and, as Regal put it, “the dark legacy and magical town that binds them.” Big Fish may also be headed to Broadway: the book is currently being developed as a musical for the Great White Way.
In a second Touchstone acquisition, Heather Lazare took U.S., Canadian and open market rights to Nancy Bilyeau’s The Chalice. The novel is a sequel to Bilyeau’s debut, The Crown, which Touchstone released in January. Bilyeau is a magazine editor/writer—she’s worked at Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, among other publications—and The Crown was a finalist for the British literary award, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger. The Chalice, set in Tudor England, follows protagonist Joanna Stafford, a nun, who, per the S&S imprint “is given an impossibly dangerous task and must use every ounce of her intelligence and courage to thwart the most powerful men of her era.” Heide Lange, at Sanford Greenburger, represented Bilyeau; The Chalice is on track to publish next spring.
Viking Nabs Flyte’s Sophomore Novel
Magnus Flyte, the pseudonym that authors Christina Lynch and Megan Howrey co-write under, has inked a new deal with Penguin’s Viking imprint. Executive editor Carolyn Carlson bought world rights to the tentatively titled City of Dreams from Folio Literary Management’s Claudia Cross and Brady Lit’s Sally Brady. The first book by Flyte, City of Dark Magic, was also acquired by Carlson and is scheduled for November 2012. City of Dreams, a sequel to City of Dark Magic, is set in Vienna; it’s scheduled for December 2013.
Norton Goes to Minotaur for Debut Fiction
True crime writer Carla Norton, who wrote two bestsellers, in the late 1980s (Perfect Victim) and mid-1990s (Disturbed Ground), signed a two-book deal with Macmillan’s Minotaur imprint. Hope Dellon (who is at St. Martin's Press but also acquires for Minotaur) took world rights to Norton’s first foray into fiction, The Edge of Normal, a thriller about a 22-year-old who survives a kidnapping (as well as an extended period of captivity), only to find herself pulled into a scheme to capture a sexual predator after she’s asked to help a young girl recovering from an abduction. Agent Liza Dawson, of Liza Dawson Associates, sold the book, and foreign rights have been acquired in the U.K., Germany, and Italy. Steve Fisher at APA is handling film rights. Edge of Normal is slated for fall 2013.
Greenwillow Signs New Trilogy by Carson
Martha Mihalick at HarperCollins’s Greenwillow Books bought North American rights to a new fantasy trilogy from Rae Carson, who is currently writing the Fire and Thorns series for the children’s imprint. The first book in Fire and Thorns, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, was Carson’s debut and an ALA Top 10 Best Fiction for Young Adults honoree in 2012; it was published in September 2011, and the next two books in that series are scheduled for fall 2012 and fall 2013, respectively. Agent Holly Root at Waxman Leavell closed this deal, and said the new trilogy is “a sweeping and romantic fantasy” that follows a teenage girl whose magical ability to find gold puts her in a dangerous position during the American Gold Rush.
