Headline jumps Shark

Début novel The Shark Club, described as a love story featuring a world-travelling marine biologist who is studying the animals that once threatened her life, has been signed in five territories.

Headline’s Marion Donaldson bought UK and Commonwealth rights to the novel, by Ann Kidd Taylor, from Matilda Forbes Watson at WME on behalf of Jennifer Rudolph Walsh and Margaret Riley King.

Viking won it in the US; Penguin Verlag in Germany; Ambo Anthos in Holland; and Calmann-Levy has pre-empted in France. There are offers in Italy.

WME's description of the book said: "Unfolding against the intoxicating backdrop of palm trees and blood orange sunsets The Shark Club is a love story and an exploration of a human being’s mysterious kinship with the sea."