Putnam Lands Santopolo Sequel
Putnam executive editor Tara Singh Carlson has acquired world rights to The Love We Found by Jill Santopolo, the sequel to the international bestseller The Light We Lost. Miriam Altshuler at DeFiore & Company brokered the deal. Putnam said that in the new novel, set 10 years after The Light We Lost, Lucy “discovers an address among Gabe’s old photos that prompts her to travel to Rome, where she ends up meeting the next love of her life, even as she wrestles with a family-changing decision.” Putnam plans to publish in spring 2025.
Hardy’s ‘Queen’ Coronated by Ballantine
In a preempt, Natalie Hallak at Ballantine has signed world rights to Kayla Hardy’s The Quarter Queen, along with an as-yet-untitled second book. The deal was negotiated by Emma Kapson at Verve Talent & Literary.
Ballantine said The Quarter Queen is “a mother-daughter saga set in a magically and racially divided 19th-century New Orleans” that tells the story of “the daughter of voodoo queen Marie Laveau, who must race against the clock to navigate the power struggle of her city in order to save her mother, in the process discovering her own inner magic and its connection to a dark secret, intertwined with Marie’s rise to the throne 20 years earlier.” No pub date has been announced.
Simon Element Goes ‘Higher’ for Anderson
Platinum-selling rapper, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Sean “Big Sean” Anderson has sold world English rights to Go Higher: Five Practices for Purpose, Success, and Inner Peace to Samantha Weiner at Simon Element. Sarah Passick at Park & Fine Literary and Media brokered the deal. The publisher said that in the book, Anderson will share his “five key practices for inner work and self-acceptance through an interactive guidebook on maintaining daily mental wellness.” Go Higher is set to publish in October.
Grand Central Signs Four from Berry
Grand Central publisher Ben Sevier has acquired North American rights to four books by bestselling author Steve Berry: three in the author’s perennially popular Cotton Malone series, as well as a standalone title, which Grand Central
described as a thriller that leans on Berry’s legal background. Simon Lipskar at Writers House negotiated the deal, and Grand Central executive editor Lyssa Keusch will edit. The first scheduled among the books is The Medici Return, the next Cotton Malone thriller, which will be released in February 2025.
Stoddard’s Debut Novel Goes to Celadon
Kat Stoddard has sold world rights to Wasp’s Nest to Faith Tomlin at Celadon Books. The deal was brokered by Claire Romine at Trident Media Group. Celadon called the debut novel a contemporary queer homage to the 1940 film The Philadelphia Story, with “the heart and coastal backdrop of The Summer I Turned Pretty.” It follows “an artist and recovering alcoholic who attends his
ex-wife’s glamorous Cape Cod wedding with an unpredictable young writer as his fake boyfriend, resulting in a complicated love triangle.” The book is tentatively set for a summer 2026 publication.
Gallery Takes Arons’s Kate Spade Memoir
Gallery Books editorial director Aimee Bell has acquired world rights to We Might Just Make It After All, a memoir by Elyce Arons, cofounder of Kate Spade and Frances Valentine, and the best friend of the late designer. Dan Strone at Trident Media Group brokered the deal. Gallery said the book tells “the story of a friendship forged in college—Arons and Spade having met as freshmen at the University of Kansas in 1981—that carried the two young women as they developed from broke teenagers to Midwestern 20-somethings in New York City to aspiring career women in the early 90s whose upstart company went on to become an iconic global fashion brand.” A publication date has not yet been set.
