Morrow Nabs New Joe Hill
Bestselling author Joe Hill (NOS4A2) sold world rights (excluding U.K.) to a novella collection called Strange Weather to Jennifer Brehl at William Morrow. (Gollancz bought U.K. rights.) Laurel Choate, who has an eponymous shingle, represented Hill. Brehl said the four short novels that make up the collection, which is slated for release October 24, are “by turns touching, horrifying, funny, and wise.”
Irish Blogger’s Debut to Dutton
Author and blogger Olivia Kiernan closed a North American rights deal for her debut novel, Too Close to Breathe, with Stephanie Kelly at Dutton. The thriller, which the publisher compared to work by Tana French and the TV show The Killing, follows a Dublin detective, Frankie Sheehan, whose seemingly straightforward suicide case morphs into a complex homicide. The second book in the deal, The Killer in Me, will feature the same detective. The two-book deal was negotiated by Zoe Sandler at ICM Partners on behalf of Sue Armstrong at C&W Agency. The books have also sold in a handful of foreign deals to publishers in the U.K., Germany, France and Russia. Kiernan, who is Irish and lives in the U.K., has an M.A. in creative writing from the University of Sussex.
Park Re-ups at Clarion
In a two-book deal, Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park sold a picture book and a middle grade novel to Dinah Stevenson at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Clarion Books imprint. The picture book is based on Park’s bestselling middle grade novel A Long Walk to Water (published by Clarion in 2011), which follows two Sudanese children, one in the mid-1980s and the other in the late 2000s, whose lives are brutally disrupted by political turmoil and civil war. The book is scheduled for fall 2019 and will, the publisher said, “invite younger readers into a South Sudan setting.” An illustrator has not yet been attached to the project. The second book is an untitled middle grade novel; it’s scheduled for spring 2019. Ginger Knowlton at Curtis Brown Ltd. represented Park, selling U.S., Canadian, and Philippine rights.
Tomsic Turns It Up to 11 at Katherine Tegen
Katherine Tegen Books’ Maria Barbo bought world rights, in a two-book deal, to Kim Tomsic’s middle-grade debut, The 11:11 Wish. Jennifer Rofé at Andrea Brown Literary, who represented Tomsic, said the book follows a young math genius who uses “a magical cat clock” in an attempt to blend in at her new school. The effort, Rofé explained, brings “hilarious Pinocchio-esque consequences.” The book is slated for 2018.
Briefs
In a world rights agreement, Patricia Esden sold the next three books in her Northern Circle Coven series to Selena James at Kensington. The paranormal romance series is set in contemporary Vermont and, per Esden’s agent, Pooja Menon at Kimberly Cameron & Associates, “centers around a disreputable coven and the stories of three strong women who are determined to save it, and themselves, from past mistakes.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the first name of the protagonist of Too Close to Breathe; it is Frankie, not Frank.
