Foreign rights guide

They say you can't go home again, but sometimes you have to. Evie Ferrante, recently promoted curator for a New York City historical society, is about to launch her first exhibit, “Seared in Memory,” which commemorates several of New York's historic fires and includes, to Evie’s great pride, the engine from the B-25 bomber that struck the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on a fog-shrouded morning in 1945. But Evie’s triumph is cut short by a phone call: Her mother has been rushed to the hospital. Again. Now Evie must return to the house in which she grew up, in a quirky waterfront neighborhood in the Bronx. As she begins to sort through the mess her mother has left behind, Evie becomes increasingly close to her mother's neighbor, Mina Yetner, who is Evie’s grandmother's age. Mina is still sharp --  or at least she has been, though she confesses to Evie that she’s been the victim of a string of "accidents" that she can neither explain nor keep track of. And though Mina’s not afraid of dying, she is afraid of losing her memory – or her mind. Before too long, Evie finds herself “curating” Mina – piecing together her past and present, using Mina’s stories and the objects in her house – and, in so doing, begins to think there’s a larger story at work . . . one that could have deadly consequences for both women. Hallie Ephron is the mystery reviewer for the Boston Globe.  She is the author of the novels NEVER TELL A LIE and COME AND FIND ME, both of which were nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Hallie Ephron is a member of the supremely talented Ephron clan, sister to fellow writers Nora, Delia, and Amy.  William Morrow

UK rights: HarperCollins US; Translation rights: Brandt & Brandt Literary Agency

Estimated length:  288 pages

Manuscript available: May 2012

Fishman, Zoe

An exciting new novel from the author of BALANCING ACTS about a young woman who returns home for summer after her first year away at college, where a tragedy pushes her to uncover family truths and take a good look at the woman she wants to become. Ruth Wasserman has always felt like an outsider in her Alabama town. Being a curly-haired Jewish girl amongst blonde Southern Baptists was never easy and, within her own family, she has always played second fiddle to her older brother—a star athlete and student who her parents adore. After one year away at college she returns home looking like a new, wiser woman on the outside, but struggling with low self-esteem and a possible eating disorder. While working as a lifeguard, a child almost drowns on her watch. The repercussions will push her to confront truths about her parents, her brother, and herself that she’s been trying to ignore. This is an engaging story beautifully shows how tragedy can make us stronger and that knowing who we are on the inside is our greatest strength. William Morrow Paperbacks

Estimated length: 304 pages

Galley available
Freveletti, Jamie

*DEAD ASLEEP

In this pulse-pounding sequel to THE NINTH DAY, brilliant biochemist Emma Caldridge must stop the spread of a mysterious sleeping sickness on an island where voodoo and possibly worse are practiced. When chemist Emma Caldridge travels to an exclusive island to collect rare minerals, she expects to dive the nearby underwater caves, collect her specimens, and fly home. What she doesn’t expect is that the mineral she’s been hired to collect has unique properties that make it attractive to terrorist organizations and the island is the location of a secret auction to sell it. Emma is confronted with an island culture that practices voodoo and tells tales of sea monsters and curses. She dismisses the stories as legend, until her own ship is nearly sunk and a strange illness sweeps across the island, causing people to behave in an erratic and violent manner, before falling into a deep sleep. As the islanders fall asleep one by one, the world community imposes a quarantine. No one exposed to the strange illness can leave until the authorities can determine its cause.  It’s left to Emma to disrupt the auction, steal back the mineral, and try to leave the island alive. Jamie Freveletti is a trial lawyer who practices in Chicago. After attending law school, she lived in Geneva, Switzerland while obtaining a diploma in International Studies. She’s also a runner who both practices and teaches Akido, a Japanese martial art.  She is the author of RUNNING  FROM THE DEVIL, RUNNING DARK and THE NINTH DAY. RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL was the winner of the Thriller Award, the Berry Award, and the Crimespree Award. Freveletti is writing the next Ludlum, The Janis Reprisal that will go on-sale 2 months before our book. Morrow Avon Mass Market Original

Estimated length:  320 pages

Manuscript available: May 2012
Gore, Steven

*POWER BLIND

A timely high-stakes political thriller from the author of FINAL TARGET, ABSOLUTE RISK and ACT OF DECEIT. Graham Gage is shocked to receive a call from Charlie Palmer, a man who has made his career by helping San Francisco’s wealthy elite cover-up their mishaps with the law and create get-out-of-jail-free cards for the right price. But moments after a surprisingly remorseful conversation, Palmer ends up dead. Setting out to find justice for Palmer’s victim, Gage follows a trail of deceit and money laundering that will reveal corruption at every level of government including the Supreme Court and the office of the President. But the closer that Gage gets to revealing injustice, the higher the body count rises, putting family and friends directly in harms way. Harper Mass Market

Estimated length: 528 pages

Manuscript available

Graham, Jorie

The New York Times has said that “Graham’s poetry is among the most sensuously embodied and imaginative writing we have,” and this marvelous new collection is a perfect example of how startling, original, and deeply relevant her poetry can be. In PLACE, Graham explores the dualities and polarities of life, of the creative and destructive tensions that exist between spirit and flesh, the real and the mythical, stillness and motion, the interior and exterior existence. Jorie Graham is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including THE DREAM OF THE UNIFIED FIELD, which won the Pulitzer Prize. She divides her time between western France and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she teaches at Harvard University. Graham is the first woman to hold the Boylston professorship in the Department of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard, a chair with an illustrious lineage dating back to John Quincy Adams. She was the unanimous choice of a special interdepartmental search committee formed to replace Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, who held the position previously. Ecco paperback original

Publication: May 2012 (CBR)

Estimated length: 96 pages

Book available

Beloved author Shelley Shepard Gray delivers her final book in the Secret of Crittenden County trilogy, in which Detective Luke Reynolds discovers the identity of Perry Borntrager’s killer and the Amish community must come to terms with it being one of their own members. As the search for the killer continues, Jacob Schrock is a prime suspect. Deborah Borntrager, Perry’s sister, knows Jacob doesn’t want her working at the Schrock’s Variety store, but she is desperate to escape the isolation of her home. As they work together their attraction to each other increases. When Jacob is arrested for the murder of Perry, the community is outraged. Jacob’s father steps forward and confesses the crime, but does he do so to protect his son or is he really the killer? Avon Inspire

Estimated length: 272 pages

Manuscript available
Greenburg, Mike

*EVERYTHING WE COULD EVER ASK FOR

This first novel by a popular radio host tells the story of three women – Brooke, Samantha and Katherine -  whose lives are very different but are about to intersect in a profound way. BROOKE is happily married to her college sweetheart.  Even after the twins and the c-section and all the dog poop and cat litter and stomach viruses and coffee breath and eye gunk and accidental farts, Scott still always manages to wink at her at just the right moments. And that is why, for her beloved, romantic, successful husband’s fortieth birthday, she is giving him naked pictures of his wife. SAMANTHA has just found shocking evidence of infidelity on her husband’s computer. She’s been married for only two days. She won’t be for long. KATHERINE works eighteen hours a day for the man she was once in love with but now hates more than she loves. She has a duplex on Park Avenue, a driver, a chef, an assistant, and a killer house in Southampton, and she bought it all herself. If she still has to see Phillip every day, so what? Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don’t know each other, but their stories are about to intertwine in a way none of them could anticipate. All three are about to discover the power of friendship over adversity, the delights that come when least expected, and the incredible difference three women can make in each others’ lives.  A novel of friendship, love, heartbreak and renewal, EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER ASK FOR will stay with you long after you have turned the final page. ESPN Radio host and author Mike Greenberg’s first book, Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot (Villard), came out in 2006 and is currently under option as a TV show.  William Morrow

Estimated length: 320 pages

Manuscript available: May 2012                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Greenfeld, Karl Taro

“I loved Triburbia, loved dropping in on these wonderful characters with their outsized appetites and ambitions, the lithe and lively prose, the way the book swirls in and out of these lives and maps perfectly a place and a moment in time. Most of all, though, I loved Karl Taro Greenfeld's deft satirical touch, the searing empathy with which he offers up his privileged, damaged people to the world.” –Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of the Poets

This novel-in-stories is both haunting and heartbreaking, darkly funny and surprisingly poignant. Much like Jennifer Egan’s A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD and Tom Rachman’s THE IMPERFECTIONISTS, the chapters in Greenfeld’s book are arranged as puzzle pieces—snippets of individual lives that fit perfectly together, working to create an image that’s striking in its clarity, and comprehensive in its collective weight. The book is set in TriBeCa— a neighborhood whose name has become synonymous with downtown New York wealth, soaring lofts, massive yachts, and precious restaurants. At the core of TRIBURBIA is a group of fathers thrown together by circumstance; each morning, they meet one another for breakfast after dropping their children off at the same exorbitantly priced private school. They are musicians, producers, photographers, and gangsters, confronting the terrible truths about ambition, wealth, and sex. Over the course of a year, the book uncovers the sacrifices and betrayals that haunt each man. In a world where consequences are so easily glossed over, Greenfeld shows how the repercussions of our choices not only rattle our own lives, but also have the power to devastate the lives of the people we love. The stories are narrated by both men and women, giving the reader an equal experience of both men’s and women’s points-of-view, and together coalesce into a single narrative that’s as compelling and as captivating as any novel. Greenfeld is the author of four previous books, all nonfiction, including the much-acclaimed memoir BOY ALONE (Harper 2009), which Peter Matthiessen called “A candid, brave, painful and well written memoir.” His other three books include THE CHINA SYNDROME (Harper 2007), about which Amy Tan said, “If you take this book to bed, don’t expect any sleep”; STANDARD DEVIATIONS (Villard 2002), which William Gibson called “Lucid. Merciless. Unforgettable” and SPEED TRIBES (Harper 1995), about Japan’s troubled youth. Karl’s fiction has appeared in such renowned publications as The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, American Short Fiction, The Missouri Review, One Story, Commentary, The Southern Review, and The Sun. His writing has also been anthologized in Best American Sports Writing, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best American Travel Writing, and Best Creative Nonfiction, and has been translated into nine languages. Born in Kobe, Japan, Karl has lived in Paris, Hong Kong, New York, and Tokyo. Karl was recently awarded a PEN/O Henry Prize for a short story of his published last year in the Santa Monica Review. Harper
Rights sold: Danish/Moller Forlag; French/Editions Philippe Rey; Polish/Weltbild; UK/Atlantic Books
BOY ALONE sold: Dutch/House Of Books; Korean/Hong-ik Publishing; Italian/Piemme; Portuguese rights in Brazil/Planeta do Brasil
Publication: August 2012 (JS)

Estimated length: 288 pages

Galley available
Grose, Jessica

*SAD DESK SALAD

From senior editor of Slate magazine, a smart, sharp, and funny debut novel about a savvy blogger who stumbles upon the biggest scoop of the year, and must reconcile her true values with the growing, ruthless demands of a gossip and reality-obsessed culture. Alex Lyons gets paid to be a bitch. As writer for Chick Habit, a popular blog, she is fulfilling her dream of being a professional writer. Always looking for the next big celebrity scandal, she churns out several posts a day under pressure from her parent company that is cracking down on page views. When she receives the juiciest scoop of the year – a politico’s squeaky-clean Ivy League daughter caught in the act of some very scandalous activities – Alex immediately prepares to ignite the next Internet feeding frenzy. But she hesitates when she realizes it will ruin the girl’s life. What Alex doesn’t anticipate is how the big scoop will send her own life spiraling out of control. Prior to joining Slate, Jessica Grose was an editor at Jezebel. William Morrow Paperbacks

Estimated length: 320 pages

Manuscript available
Gross, Andrew

15 SECONDS

“A white knuckle, stay-up-all-night thrill ride. Enjoyed the heck out of it!” - Harlan Coben

From the bestselling author of The Blue Zone and Eyes Wide Open,15 SECONDS is a thrilling, fast-paced story of a man, on the run, desperate to prove his innocence and to save his family’s lives. Henry Steadman didn’t have a care in the world as he sped through Jacksonville, Florida, but suddenly his life was turned upside down in 15 seconds... He was there to deliver a talk at a medical convention and was stopped by a local policeman for a minor traffic violation. While the ticket is being written, a blue sedan appears and the driver shoots the policeman dead, speeding away quickly enough that Henry is instantly seen as a cop killer. An all-points bulletin is put out for his arrest, and Henry must figure out whom he can trust. He calls his friend Mike who urges him to come over right away, but he finds Mike dead and more evidence links Henry to this death as well. The stakes get even higher as Henry’s family is drawn into this web of increasing suspense and terror, and he must untangle the clues and figure out who is out to get him. Andrew Gross is the author of the New York Times and international bestsellers Reckless, The Blue Zone, Don’t Look Twice, and The Dark Tide, which was nominated for the Best Thriller of the Year award by the International Thriller Writers. He is also coauthor of five number one bestsellers with James Patterson, including Judge & Jury and Lifeguard. William Morrow
EYES WIDE OPEN sold in Hungarian/Geopen; Turkish/Beyaz Balina; UK/HarperCollins UK

Publication: July 2012 (JS)

Estimated length: 336 pages

ARE available

On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the day wall street crashed, Patience Murphy, a 39-year-old, union sympathizer from Pittsburgh, suffargette and widow twice over is attending a birth of a still born child in Liberty, West Virginia. She's new at this and has recently lost her more experienced midwife partner, Mrs. Kelly. On the run and wanted in two states, she's in way over head. Without a friend or mentor, isolated in the mountains of Appalchia, she must establish her right to practice amid the poverty of the Great Depression. She must cope with troubles between the mining companies and their unions and the racism of the still-active Ku Klux Klan. Over the course a year, we follow her, through her journals, to home births in mining camps as well as mine owner's mansions. We see her learn to survive on the land with the help of her black midwife assistant, Bitsy. We learn why she's hiding out, and the horrible secret she hasn't told anyone. THE MIDWIFE OF HOPE RIVER is a story of a courageous woman's fight for love and community, a saga of passion, loss and hope. Patricia Harman is a practicing midwife and an active member in many midwifery programs and conferences. She has written two acclaimed memoirs about her experiences as a midwife. THE MIDWIFE OF HOPE RIVER is her first novel. William Morrow Paperbacks

Estimated length: 320 pages

Manuscript available
Harrison, Kim

*INTO THE WOODS: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond

New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison’s first short story collection, including an original Hollows novella, original stories, plus all her previous published short stories. No fan will be able to pass up this collection. The novella is a spin-off from PALE DEMON called “Million Dollar Baby,” which is about what happens when elven tycoon Trent Kalamack and Jenks the pixy team up to rescue Trent’s daughter. Also included are “Spider Web” and “Grace’s Fall,” original novelettes set in brand-new fantasy worlds. Harper Voyager
DEAD WITCH WALKING sold: China (simplified)/Shanghai 99; China(complex)/King-In; Czech/Fantom Press; Denmark/Tellerup; France/Bragelonne; Germany/Heyne; Holland/Luitingh; Hungary/Beholder; Italy/Fanucci; Japan/Hayakawa; Poland/Mag Josek Rodek; Norway/Schibsted; Portugal/Saida de Emergencia; Russia/AST; Spain/Factoria de Ideas; Serbia/Laguna; Turkey/Artemis
Publication: October 2012 (CB)

Estimated length: 384 pages

Manuscript available: April 2012
Hickman, Tracy

WAYNE OF GOTHAM

From New York Times bestselling fantasy writer Tracy Hickman comes an original story featuring Batman as he investigates the events surrounding his parent’s murder and the darkest secrets of his family’s past. Written in noir-style, WAYNE OF GOTHAM is set both in the present and in the turbulent decades of the 1950s and 1960s. It is the story of two men separated by a generation of tragedy: Thomas, the rebellious heir to the vast Wayne Empire fortune and Bruce, his son, whose life is forever altered by witnessing Thomas’s death. The murder of his parents is the tortuous point on which Bruce turns to become Batman. The murder case has long been closed, but when disturbing information shows up, Batman re-opens the case file, and discovers a father and mother he never knew and the burden of a dark legacy he must now bear. This is the first time this story has been told, and we have the full promotional support from DC Comics. !t Books

Estimated length: 304 pages

Estimated length: 384 pages

Manuscript available: June 2012
Jance, J.A.