William Boyd Moves to Bloomsbury
Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury took world English rights (excluding Canada) to William Boyd’s new novel, Sweet Caress. Boyd, who is moving from HarperCollins, was represented by Jonny Geller, at Curtis Brown, and Amanda Urban, at ICM Partners. Bloomsbury will release the novel simultaneously in the U.S. and U.K. in September 2015. Geller described the book, which follows heroine Amory Clay, as a “sweeping story of a remarkable woman photographer’s life through the turbulent 20th century.” Boyd, who has won numerous literary awards—including the Whitbread and the Costa—most recently wrote the James Bond novel Solo (Harper, 2013).

Scribner Nabs Tran’s ‘Sticks’
In a preempt, Scribner’s Liese Mayer took North American rights, in a substantial six-figure deal, to Ly Tran’s memoir, House of Sticks. Tran, a 25-year-old Vietnamese-American, delves into the immigrant experience in the book. Sarah Levitt at the Zoë Pagnamenta Agency handled the sale for the author. Tran’s father, a lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Army who spent a decade in a reeducation camp, emigrated through a U.S. government program that resettled Vietnamese POWs in the States. Tran grew up in New York City, working in sweat shops and Brooklyn nail salons; she went on to graduate from Columbia. The book, Scribner said, is evocative of works like The Glass Castle and Random Family. The imprint added that the story will be told “from the perspective of a nail salon technician and structured through the steps of a manicure.”

Frazier Closes Double at Arthur A. Levine
Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything in It author Sundee Frazier inked a two-book, world rights deal with Arthur Levine at his eponymous Scholastic imprint. Regina Brooks at Serendipity Literary represented the author. The first book, Cleopatra Edison Oliver, CEO, is set for 2015 and follows, Brooks explained, a “kidpreneur” who sets her sights on building a business empire and finding her birth family—all during her fifth-grade year.

Balcombe Gets Fishy at FSG
In a six-figure deal, animal behaviorist Jonathan Balcombe sold What a Fish Knows: Exploring the Inner Lives of Fishes to Amanda Moon at FSG/Scientific American. The book, which Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management represented, is currently set for summer 2016. Balcombe is chair of the department of animal studies at the Humane Society of the United States, and the book, Glick said, blends “science with stories.” Balcombe shows how fish are complicated and “sensitive” creatures facing a decline in habitats and a drop in population. Ultimately, Glick said, the book “champions fish as individuals... and it marks the dawn of a new era in how we relate to these misunderstood animals.”

Vivian Floods S&S Kids
YA novelist Siobhan Vivian sold The Last Boy and Girl in the World to Zareen Jaffrey at Simon & Schuster Children’s Books, in a two-book, North American rights deal. Emily van Beek at Folio Literary Management represented the author. S&S compared the novel to Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles (Random House, 2012), and said it follows a 16-year-old whose life is upended by a flood. As she and her family flee their town for higher ground, she is forced to “juggle her femininity and strength, the affections of the two boys who love her, and a parade of departing friends whose good-byes turn from tender to thorny.”