Jenna Johnson at FSG acquired North American rights to Material by Raven Leilani from Ellen Levine at Trident Media. Leilani’s sophomore novel, after the 2020 hit Luster, centers on a “group of women, all artists, tied together by the fallout of a scandal, and the ways in which they wrestle with doubt, corroboration, exposure, rage and how to make something from the material of their lives,” according to the publisher. Publication is scheduled for spring 2027.

 

Julie Strauss-Gabel at Dutton acquired global rights to Hollywood, Ending by John Green from Jodi Reamer at Writers House. Green’s adult fiction debut, his first novel in nearly 10 years, follows two young actors cast in a buzzy Andy Warhol biopic, whose rise to fame “forces them to confront the private cost of public life,” per the publisher. Release is set for September.

Emily Archbold at Del Rey won North American rights, in a three-book deal, to B.N. King’s Wolfboy from Veronique Baxter at David Higham Agency. The trilogy starter is set at the “mysterious Hatherlea Experimental School,” where “two 17-year-old best friends—a werewolf and a telepath-in-training—are struggling with the trials and tribulations of adolescence, and the fact they might just be falling in love,” per the publisher. A fall 2027 publication is planned.

Evan Hansen-Bundy at Bloomsbury took North American rights, at auction, to Adam Aleksic’s Reality Drift from Rachel Vogel at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. The book, per the publisher, explores how “AI and algorithms have evolved to manufacture trends and hijack user opinion online, with profound implications for our perception of truth and the future of American culture.” A fall 2027 release is planned.

Olivia Taylor Smith at Simon & Schuster preempted world English rights to Nick Waters’s Pool Service from Harvey Klinger, who has an eponymous agency. Set in South Florida, the debut novel centers on a “pool guy” who “services” both pools and wives—and gets caught up in one woman’s murderous plans, per the agency. The book is slated for summer 2027.

Gina Iaquinta at Liveright took North American rights to Heather Barker’s The Island of Repair, for the publisher’s Well-Read Black Girl series curated by Glory Edim, from Chad Luibl at Janklow & Nesbit. The novel-in-stories is set “in an alternate Barbados, where every 50 years there is a state-sanctioned lottery called the Plundering, in which Black Bajans are invited to knock on the doors of white residents and demand whatever they desire,” per the publisher. A summer 2027 publication is planned.

In Brief

  • Laura Macaulay at Pushkin Press took world English rights to How to Travel Incognito, an “autofictional romp through postwar France,” by Ludwig Bemelmans, author of the Madeline books, for publication in October. Jill Grinberg, who has an eponymous agency, handled the deal.

  • Ariel Curry at Sourcebooks landed world English rights to Radical Resourcefulness: The Hidden Advantage of Using What You’ve Got to Get More of What You Want by Omar Soliman and Nick Friedman, cofounders of trash removal company College Hunks Hauling Junk & Moving, for a summer 2027 release. Linda Konner, who has an eponymous agency, brokered the deal.

  • Helen O’Hare at Little, Brown netted world English rights to the next three novels in Kerri Maniscalco’s adult romantasy series Prince of Sin from Barbara Poelle at Word One Literary Agency, for a fall 2027 publication.

  • Stephanie Koven at Blackstone bought U.S. rights to Rachel Rose’s The Scarlet Daughter, which imagines Hester Prynne’s daughter Pearl as “an artist, avenger of wronged women, and lover of Isaac Newton,” from Hilary McMahon at Westwood Creative Artists, for a March 2027 publication.

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