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The Bookseller news team looks at the titles agents will tout at next month's fair.
This is part one, please email your hot books to graeme.neill@bookseller.co.uk, for inclusion in next week's piece.
Curtis Brown has a UK auction under way for Melanie Gideon's adult début, Wife 22 (with Ballantine in the US), about a woman in a midlife crisis taking part in an anonymous survey on marital happiness. CB describes it as hilarious and wise. The agency is also taking to Frankfurt new novels by Tom Rob Smith (The Last Adversary, to be published by Simon & Schuster UK in February 2011) and Emlyn Rees (Manhunt, with Constable in the UK). It will also take Tammy Cohen's début, The Mistress' Revenge (sold to Transworld UK), a Casey Hill début thriller Taboo (with S&S UK) and a second novel from Sister author Rosamund Lupton entitled Afterwards.
Blake Friedmann has negotiated a three-book deal with Wayne Brookes at Pan Macmillan for a new Newcastle-based crime series by Mari Hannah. The first, The Murder Wall, is due for publication in 2012 and Goldmann has bought German rights in the first two books at auction. The agency also has a young adult zombie series set in a near-future Cape Town by Sarah Lotz (first novel Deadlands), for which Penguin South Africa has bought SA rights. It is also taking Running with the Kenyans by journalist Adharanand Finn, just sold to Faber in the UK.
Sheil Land has Zimbabwe-set début The Cry of the Go-Away Bird by Andrew Eames, sold to Harvill Secker in the UK. It is also taking to Frankfurt American historian Jack Hight's follow-up to Siege, the first instalment of a trilogy about 12th-century Sultan Saladin, entitled Eagle (sold to John Murray in the UK). Début novel Laura's Hand-Made Life by Amanda Addison is said to "tap into the popularity of vintage fashion and handicrafts", with Sphere as the UK publisher. Children's author and games developer James Johnson is said to have "a wonderful new anti-hero" in a book Dark Lord: The Teenage Years, the subject of a three-way UK auction.
At David Godwin Associates Rhumba by Elaine Proctor sold to Jon Riley at Quercus last week. Riley said: "It is rare to discover a first novelist of such talent as Elaine Proctor." Also available is Aftertaste by Namita Devidayal about an Indian family and their thoughts about how the death of the family matriarch will affect their own fortunes. UK rights are still available. The agency is selling UK rights to Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil, an "intense and atmospheric novel set in the opium dens of Bombay". The Sly Company of People Who Care by Rahul Bhattacharya has been sold to Picador in the UK and India for May 2011 publication and Farrar, Strauss & Giroux in the US. It is described as beautiful writing in the tradition of V S Naipaul's early Caribbean novels.
Anthony Goff at David Higham Associates has UK offers on Hawk Quest, a début adventure story set in the 11th century by Robert Lyndon. Lizzy Kremer has concluded a two-novel deal with Headline for Geraint Anderson, otherwise known as "CityBoy", whose memoir sold 180,000 copies in the UK. The first novel, Just Business, is "a fugitive-style caper thriller set in the financial world". Kremer also sold The Greatest Love Story of All Time to Mari Evans at Michael Joseph after a three-way auction. By Marie Claire blogger Lucy Robinson, it is "sharp, modern and hilarious fiction for young women". Veronique Baxter is touting After Party by Guardian journalist Leo Benedictus, a novel "about truth, lies, and the dark underbelly of 21st-century celebrity life". Cape has acquired in the UK. Andrew Gordon has a UK auction under way for Inspector Minahan Makes a Stand by Bridget O'Donnell. The narrative non-fiction book is about a Victorian policeman trying to crack down on people trafficking.
Aitken Alexander has highlighted Rob Magnuson Smith's début The Gravedigger, as a "deeply moving first novel about the inhabitants of a small English village". Another début is Stuart Evers' Ten Stories, which will be published by Picador in March 2011. Former Man Booker-shortlisted author Edward St Aubyn's At Last is billed as a masterpiece of dark comedy. Helen Humphreys' The Reinvention of Love has been lauded by Booker-shortlisted author Emma Donoghue as witty, sad and gorgeous in equal measure. Sunday Times' columnist Daisy Waugh's book on Rupert Valentino, Last Dance with Valentino, is also being taken to the fair. In non-fiction, Thant Myint-U's untitled book looks at the relationship between India and China.
Titles from PFD include foreign rights to Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?, a non-fiction title about the author's "quest to find out where she comes from". Foreign rights are being offered to The Leningrad Symphony, a title about the Siege of Leningrad, by former foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times, Brian Moynahan. Quercus will publish in the UK in August 2012. All rights are on offer to 33 Men, an in-depth look at the trapped Chilean miners by Jonathan Franklin, the Guardian's Chile correspondent, and the only British journalist allowed to speak to the men underground.
Anne Enright's follow-up to the Man Booker winner The Gathering is among the titles identified by Rogers, Coleridge and White. The Forgotten Waltz is published by Cape in the UK, Norton in the United States and McClelland & Stewart in Canada. The agency is taking three débuts to the fair. Doll Princess by Tom Benn, published by Cape in the UK next month, is the first of a projected series set in gangland Manchester. The Beggar's Opera by Peggy Blair, a Havana-set crime novel, is another projected series and on submission in the UK. Tides of War, by historian Stella Tillyard, is set in Regency London and Spain during the Peninsular War. Chatto publishes in the UK in May 2011. Also published that month, by Quercus, is Island of Wings by Karen Altenberg, the tale of a couple bringing Christianity to a pagan island community. The agency is selling rights to The End of the Wasp Season by Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger finalist Denise Mina. Orion publishes in the UK in May 2011; Heyne publishes in Germany. In non-fiction, Simon Stephenson's account of losing his brother in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, Let Not the Waves of the Sea, is on submission in the UK.
Titles from United Agents include Gioconda by Lucille Turner, a fictional account of the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Granta will publish in the UK in July 2011, and Spanish rights have been pre-empted by Ediciones B. Jeffery Deaver's James Bond novel, Project X, published by Hodder in the UK in May 2011, has 12 foreign deals now finalised. The Fix by Damian Thompson, about how addiction is shaping our lives, is on submission from Simon Trewin to UK publishers. Dawn French's fiction début, A Tiny Bit Marvellous, is under auction with four Dutch publishers; Michael Joseph publishes in the UK in October. David Mitchell's Dutch publisher Ailantus has signed a pre-empt for literary novel The Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke through Sarah Ballard. Alma is its UK publisher. The Burning by Jane Casey is the first in a new London-set thriller series with Ebury publishing in November in the UK. Trewin has sold rights in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, France and Poland. There is a two-book first offer just in from the US.