Deals

Fiction – General/Other – Patti Callahan Henry, writing as Patti Callahan’s THE CONSOLATION OF A HAPPY ENDING, a novel of New York ex-atheist, poet and author Joy Davidman and her improbable story which began as a pen-friendship with confirmed bachelor and Oxford don C.S. Lewis, that grew into a creative partnership then a loving marriage ending tragically with her death at 45 but not before transforming both their lives and influencing much of C.S. Lewis’s finest work, to Amanda Bostic at Thomas Nelson, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Non-fiction – Biography: Catherine Seltzer’s MAN ON FIRE: The Life of Pat Conroy, traces the ways that Conroy’s often improbable life inspired—and at time responded to—his fiction, and carefully considers Conroy as a paradoxical figure: mercurial and self-destructive on one hand, and keenly observant, generous, and charismatic on the other, to Conroy’s longtime editor Nan Talese at Nan A. Talese, in a good deal, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (world English).

Non-fiction – General/Other: Author of THE PRINCE OF TIDES Pat Conroy’s A LOWCOUNTRY HEART: Reflections on a Writing Life, a new nonfiction collection of letters, interviews, and magazine articles spanning Conroy’s long literary career, supplemented by touching pieces from Conroy’s many friends, to Nan Talese at Nan A. Talese, for publication on October 25, 2016, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (World).

Non-fiction: Illustrated/Art – NYT bestselling author of THE KITCHEN BOY, Robert Zimmermann, with illustrations by Christopher Bohnet’s VANISHED SPLENDOR, a new coloring book depicting the richness of the last days of the Romanovs, allowing users to experience splendor, majesty, and mystery of lost Russia, to Iris Blasi at Pegasus, for publication in March 7, 2017, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (World English).

Fiction debut – Kathleen Kenney’s GIRL ON THE LEESIDE, set in the present day west of Ireland, the coming-of-age story of a sheltered young woman, whose mother was killed in an I.R.A. bombing in the North when she was two, who is then raised by her bachelor uncle with whom she shares a near obsessive passion for Irish folklore and poetry, but for her it is an escape that borders on fanaticism, until her protected world is turned on its axis with the arrival of two men, one from the present and one from the past, who visit her uncle’s rural pub, necessitating Siobhan make a decision to either emerge from her cocoon or retreat back into a darker self, to Nan Talese at Nan A. Talese, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Fiction debut – Daren Wang’s THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF NORTHERN FIRES, exploring through fiction a largely unknown Civil War-era story about the only town north of the Mason-Dixon to secede from the Union, set near the last stop on the underground railroad where abolitionist farmer Mary Willis helps smuggle runaway slaves to freedom in Canada, but when she falls in love with a fugitive, the weight of the war comes crashing down on her, pitched as inspired by the true history of Town Line, NY and the Willis family, to Laurie Chittenden at Thomas Dunne Books, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Fiction Debut- Jenny Williams’s BITTER ROOT, set against the backdrop of Joseph Kony’s war in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, pitched as the “Blood Diamond” of the illegal ivory trade in which a white aid worker from Germany and a young Ugandan woman band together to search for their loved ones who have gone suddenly missing in a searing exploration of family and war, to Quressa Robinson at Thomas Dunne Books, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Non-fiction: Illustrated/Art – Melissa Conroy’s LOWCOUNTRY COLORING BOOK, black and white illustrations of Charleston, Savannah, the Sea Islands and Beyond, to Andra Miller at Algonquin, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).
Deals Page 7

Fiction debut – Melodie Winawer’s THE SCRIBE OF SIENA pitched as The Girl with a Pearl Earring meets Outlander, in which a twenty-first century female physician is transported back in time to Siena through a 14th century painter’s diary arriving in time to discover a Florentine conspiracy to destroy its rival city Siena as the Plague is about to devastate Italy in a tale of history, art and passion to Susan Moldow and Tara Parsons at Touchstone by agent Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (WE)

Simon Tolkien’s NO MAN’S LAND sweeping historical saga that tells the story of Adam Raine who grows from boy to man between the turbulent years of 1909 to 1919, starting life as an impoverished child in London who moves to a hard-living coal mining community and is subsequently adopted by the wealthy owner of an Edwardian country house, where he and the owner’s younger son become fierce rivals for the same girl, a rivalry that leads them to develop a murderous hatred for one another which affects all the characters around them, in a novel of faith, class, and war including the horrors of the Battle of the Somme which has profound effects on them all to Nan Talese at Nan A. Talese/Knopf Doubleday in a preempt in a good deal by agent Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA)