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Frankfurt Book Fair 2018 The headlines


Love is in the Fair as rom-coms fly


Rachel Winters’ début Would Like to Meet (Trapeze), about a single-


ton’s quest to prove people can fall in love like they do in the movies, has sold with a partial manuscript in three “major” deals. Rights were pre-empted in just 24 hours in the US (Putnam), sold at a six-way auction in Germany (Heyne) and a seven-way auction in Italy (Mondadori). There is “substantial interest” from film and TV production companies; Orion’s foreign rights director, Krystna Kujawinska, revealed it is “poised to sign an exciting deal aſter unprecedented interest”. The book’s UK editor, Sam Eades, said it proved rom-coms are back, citing it as a hot trend in submissions this year. In that vein, Orion also bought journalist Catriona Innes’ “First Dates”- inspired The Matchmaker from


CATRIONA INNES’ NOVEL WAS INSPIRED BY ‘FIRST DATES’


Diana Beaumont at Marjacq, as well as Tamsin Keily’s début Rules for Living, which “initially unfolds as a love story but soon becomes so much more”. UK rights to the later were secured from Jo Unwin, with US rights snapped up by HarperCollins list Park Row. Eades said “the speed of these pre-empts has been amazing”, adding: “This fair has been all about rom-coms and ‘up-lit’. With romance, it feels


quite organic—[the interest] has come from readers. There is a need for love stories and happy endings, and that must be a reaction to what’s going on in the world at the moment. It’s nostalgia for classic rom-coms of the 1980s and ’90s, like ‘Sleepless in Seatle’, but it’s also the desire for escapist fiction.” Madeleine Milburn’s agency has enjoyed huge success with both genres at the fair, with titles such as Owen Nicholls’ début Love, Unscripted and Clare Pooley’s The Authenticit Project. The US auction for Beth Morrey’s The Love Story of Missy Carmichael—which went to HarperFiction in the UK—has just closed, with Tara Singh Carlson at Penguin Putnam signing a “significant deal”. Rights also sold in Italy, Sweden, Russia and Serbia, and are under offer in Brazil, Norway and Lithuania.


Reporting Katherine Cowdrey


American author’s What She Found in the Woods goes to MCB


Thrilling return


Eagle-eyed Joseph charms the birds from the trees W H Allen senior commission- ing editor Jamie Joseph has pre-empted a “charming” title about what humans can learn from birds. Joseph bought world English-language rights to Philippe J Dubois and Elise Rousseau’s A Short Philosophy of Birds from Editions de la Martinière Littérature, which has just published the title in France. The book has been pre-empted in Germany and the Netherlands, while Spanish and Korean rights went at auction.


04 12th October 2018


JOSEPHINE ANGELINI’S STANDALONE THRILLER HAS GONE TO MACMILLAN


Josephine Angelini, the YA author best known for her Starcrossed fantasy series, is to write a standalone thriller for Macmillan Children’s Books. MCB publisher (6+) Venetia Gosling bought world English- language rights to What She Found in the Woods from the Creative Arts Agency. The book follows “over-medicated and uninspired” teen Magda, who is shipped off to her grandparents’ house in the remote Pacific Northwest after a scandal


OUP on children and war Oxford University Press has won the rights to a “ground- breaking book chronicling the lost stories of children embroiled in war” from historian Dr Emma Butcher. OUP trade publisher Luciana O’Flaherty acquired world English-language rights to Children in the Modern Age of War from Kirsty McLachlan at David Godwin Associates. Butcher, who works in the University of Leicester’s history faculty, specialises in war and culture, and has written extensively on child soldiers.


at school. She soon meets a mysterious stranger, and then a body is found in the woods… Gosling said the novel


explored important topics such as mental health and substance abuse, adding: “It’s a cross between ‘Captain Fantastic’ and We Were Liars, with an unreli- able narrator, loads of suspense and some very topical concerns. We absolutely loved it.” MCB will publish the novel next summer, alongside “refreshed” editions of the Starcrossed texts.


Tattooist tale to Hot Key Hot Key Books has announced that it will publish a YA edition of sister imprint Zaffre’s international bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz in May 2019, featuring a new jacket and a foreword from author Heather Morris. Jane Harris, m.d. of children’s trade publish- ing at Bonnier Books UK, said the opportunity to extend the title’s readership into the YA arena was “so exciting”. The novel has earned £1.3m through Nielsen BookScan UK since it was published in January 2018.


AMIA SRINIVASAN WILL TACKLE MALE SEXUAL ENTITLEMENT


Sex appeal sweeps FBF as Oxford don goes in 10 countries


Six- figure deal


Bloomsbury has pre- empted Te Right to Sex, a book about male sexual entitlement and


#MeToo by Oxford professor Amia Srinivasan, after publishing direc- tor Alexis Kirschbaum made “a decisive pre-emptive offer”. Te deal was made with


Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown. US rights were snapped up by newly ensconced FSG publisher Mitzi Angel, formerly of Faber, in a six-figure pre-empt. Rights have also sold in Holland, Germany, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Brazil, Spain and Sweden. Te Right to Sex sees “an author


set to become one of Britain’s most incisive public intellectuals [propose] a new way to talk about sex and gender”, Bloomsbury said, adding that Srinivasan, an associ- ate professor of philosophy at St John’s College, Oxford, will discuss “male sexual entitlement, rape and rape culture, #MeToo, the ‘distribu- tion’ of sex, the intersection of race and sex, paedophilia, pleasure, pornography and abortion”. Kirschbaum added: “Everything


Amia writes excites me. Her think- ing on sex and gender is profound, nuanced and not polemical.”


French fancy for Jackson as Pavilion catches Sardine


Début Pavilion Books commissioning editor


Stephanie Milner has signed world rights to London-based chef and restaurateur Alex Jackson’s début book on Provençal French cooking. The deal was struck with Emily Sweet at Emily Sweet Associates. Sardine, named after Jackson’s east London restaurant of the same name, which opened in 2016, aims “to reignite a love affair with French provincial cooking”.


Photography: Antonio Petronzio


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