Atlantic buys Aita Ighodaro's Sin Tropez

Corvus editor Laura Palmer has made her first main acquisition for the Atlantic imprint's women's fiction list, snapping up a "sizzling" début about "wild excess, sex and immorality". Palmer bought world rights, excluding the US, from Sallyanne Sweeney at Watson Little to Sin Tropez for an undisclosed sum.

The book, which follows "three friends as they chase their dreams through the playgrounds of the super-rich" is written by model Aita Ighodaro. Sin Tropez is due out as a trade paperback this December, with a mass market paperback out June 2011.

Palmer said: "It does sound slightly counter-intuitive to publish the perfect beach read in December, but I first read it last December and it really banished the winter blues, so I'm hoping it will do the same for everyone."

The list is being soft-launched in June with Lisa Hilton's The House with Blue Shutters—Palmer's first acquisition after she joined Corvus from Quercus. Sin Tropez will act as the official "herald" of the list.

Palmer said 12 of the total 48 annual Corvus publications would come from the women's­ fiction list, although it will "depend on the quality of the submissions".