Deals

THE JEWEL TRADER OF PEGU by Jeffrey Hantover — THE JEWEL TRADER OF PEGU by Jeffery Hantover is a historical novel told from the point of view of a 28-year-old jewel trader who travels from his home in the Venetian ghetto to the brilliant pagodas and palaces of 16th century Burma where he becomes caught in a forbidden love during the dying days of an ancient Asian empire to Wm Morrow VP Jennifer Brehl in a very nice deal by agent Marly Rusoff (NA)

BOWLING WITH BUDDHA by Roland Merullo — BOWLING WITH BUDDAH, Roland Merullo’s follow-up to Golfing with God, is not a bowling book at all, but a sly and hilarious road-trip tale that takes on the deepest spiritual questions with a down-to-earth, unorthodox approach reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance–only funnier to Chuck Adams at Algonquin in a very nice deal by agent Marly Rusoff (NA)

DESIGN FLAWS OF THE HUMAN CONDITION by Paul Schmidtberger — offers a bitterly funny look at two Manhattan strangers railroaded into an anger management class and opens a window onto our flawed capacity to love and to be loved while we bungle everything up along the way to Andrew Corbin of Broadway/Doubleday in a pre-empt by agent Marly Rusoff (NA)

THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL and THE FLEA PALACE by Elif Shafak — German rights to THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL Elif Shafak’s novel which tells the tale of two families, an exiled Armenian family living in San Francisco and the Kazancis of Istanbul, whose contemporary stories conjoin through a family secret that began with the 1915 massacre of Armenians and THE FLEA PALACE, an earlier novel set in Instanbul that tells the stories of the residents of a dilapidated apartment house built by a Russian émigré for his wife to Eichborn’s Doris Engelke by Jacqueline LeDonne for Marly Rusoff Agency.

THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL and THE SAINT OF INCIPIENT INSANITIES by Elif Shafak — Dutch rights to THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL and THE SAINT OF INCIPIENT INSANITIES Elif Shafak’s first novels written in English to DeGeus by Jacqueline LeDonne for Marly Rusoff Agency.

IF TODAY BE SWEET, a new book by Thrity Umrigar, whose recent novel The Space Between Us became a #1 Booksense pick for February 2006. In this third novel, Umrigar tells the story of a widowed Indian woman who must chose between joining her only son in America, giving up home, hometown, neighbors, friends or facing her last years alone in her Bombay apartment was sold to Harper VP Claire Wachtel for publication by William Morrow in 2007 in a good deal by agent Marly Rusoff. World but German.

UNTITLED by Debra Dean — An as yet UNTITLED second novel by Debra Dean, author of the April 2006 Booksense #1 selection The Madonnas of Leningrad, that will explore the disintegrating marriage of two Seattle area artists, was sold to Harper VP Claire Wachtel for publication in 2008 on the William Morrow list in a good deal by agent Marly Rusoff. World but German.

A MODEL SUMMER by Paulina Porizkova — A MODEL SUMMER a charming debut novel in which former super model and actress Paulina Porizkova brings her considerable experience as a model to tell the funny and often moving story of a fifteen-year-old Czech-born Swedish girl chosen by a modeling agent to spend a summer working in Paris, where the once ugly duckling is proclaimed a swan, forcing her to make decisions that no teen-ager should ever have to make, to Zareen Jaffery at Hyperion in a very good deal by agent Marly Rusoff (NA)

DARK WATER by Robert Clark — Robert Clark’s DARK WATER: Betrayal and Miracles in the City of Masterpieces which explores how the dramatic and devastating flooding of the Arno river in Florence in 1966 brought people from around the world to rescue books, paintings, frescoes, and religious objects in a city that has endured as a perpetual center of history, art, knowledge, and betrayal for centuries to Charles Conrad at Broadway/Doubleday in a good deal by agent Marly Rusoff. World English

THE ROMANOV BRIDE by Robert Alexander — THE ROMANOV BRIDE, third novel by Robert Alexander tells the story of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the beautiful German princess and sister of the tsaritsa, who married into the Romanov dynasty and who abandoned court life to become a nun, selling her palaces and jewelry to help the poor, to David Cashion at Viking in a significant deal by agent Marly Rusoff. (World but Germany)