Jessica Williams at William Morrow won North American rights, in an 11-way auction, to The Children, the debut adult novel by YA author Melissa Albert (pictured l.), from Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency. Emma Herdman at Bloomsbury took U.K. rights at auction. “Told in a dual timeline,” the book, the publisher said, centers “the relationship between two siblings—the children of a legendary author who wrote them into her beloved fantasy novels before dying in a tragic and suspicious fire, leaving her series of books unfinished.” Release is set for next summer.

Parisa Ebrahimi at Riverhead acquired U.S. rights to Les Forces, the sophomore novel by 2023 Prix Goncourt laureate Laura Vazquez, from Laurence Laluyaux at Rogers, Coleridge & White. Michal Shavit of Fern Press preempted U.K. rights. The book, the publisher said, “subverts the queer coming-of-age novel in the story of a girl at odds with the social order, dissecting social structures that influence our thoughts and questioning the meaning of the human experience.” No publication date has been announced.

Jimmy Soni at Infinite Books took North American rights to economist Jonathan Tepper’s memoir Shooting Up from Matthew Hamilton at the Hamilton Agency, for publication next spring. The book, per the agency, “chronicles Tepper’s childhood in Madrid, where his missionary parents founded a drug rehab center during the height of Spain’s heroin epidemic, showing addiction, recovery, and loss through the eyes of an American boy navigating between his family’s dedication to helping others and the harsh realities of AIDS during a time of needle sharing.”

Allison Lorentzen at Viking purchased North American rights, at auction, in a two-book deal, to MacDowell and Center for Fiction Susan Kamil fellow Jared Jackson’s linked story collection, Locals, from Meredith Kaffel Simonoff at the Gernert Company. The book, per the publisher, follows “young, working-class characters navigating love, grief, survival, and the pursuit of something more in the aughts in Hartford, Conn.” No publication date has been announced.

April Osborn at Hanover Square won North American rights, at auction, to The Thousand Deaths of Romeo and Juliet by British historical author Caroline Lea, writing under the name Caroline Finch, from Nelle Andrew at Rachel Mills Literary. Voyager UK preempted U.K. rights. The publisher said the “genre-bending reimagining follows the star-crossed lovers after the events of Shakespeare’s play as they’re trapped by Mercutio’s infamous curse, doomed to love and die again and again through time and space, from the world wars to New York’s Jazz Age to Jonestown.” Publication is planned for winter 2027.

In Brief

  • Andy Ward at Random House picked up world rights to Vigil by George Saunders, set on the deathbed of a big oil CEO as he receives “worldly and otherworldly” visitors “clamoring for a reckoning,” from Esther Newberg at CAA, for release next January.

  • Judith Curr and Elizabeth Mitchell at HarperOne took world rights to Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn’s Poetry Says It Better, a “collection reflecting on her lifelong love of poetry,” from Gráinne Fox and Albert Lee at UTA, for publication next April.

  • Victoria Hindley at MIT Press acquired world rights to historian and photographer Virginia McGee Richards’s debut, The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway, from Joan Brookbank, who has an eponymous agency, for release next spring.

  • Jeanne Thonrnton at Feminist Press netted world English rights to Rachel Pollack’s 2002 trans mystery novel A Secret Woman from Mary Krienke at Sterling Lord Literistic, for a fall 2026 reissue.

  • Erika Imranyi at Park Row secured world rights to actor Jennie Garth’s I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose & Embracing Reinvention from Randy James, who has an eponymous shingle, for release next April.