Donald Maass Literary Agency

Congratulations to Tananarive Due on Ghost Summer: Stories winning the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection! Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence bestselling author Tananarive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening. In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of […]

Tor.com: Priest has a striking prose style–­she’s immensely readable­–and a chilling ability to write really unnerving scenes. […] The pace is tight the whole way through, with tension that rises peak on peak up to the climactic crisis. […] The house itself is an incredible character. Place matters, here: matters deeply. One of the most notable things about The Family Plot, as a southern Gothic haunted house horror novel, is the sense of ever-increasing claustrophobia. It’s about interiors, both literal and metaphorical: the […]

Simon Pulse has acquired, with Liesa Abrams to edit, We Are the Ants author Shaun David Hutchinson’s new YA book, The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza, about a teen who was the first scientifically confirmed “virgin birth.” At 16 she discovers she can heal with a touch; simultaneously, people all over the world start disappearing in beams of light, making her wonder if she is bringing about the Apocalypse. Publication is scheduled for spring 2018; Amy Boggs at Donald Maass Literary Agency brokered the […]

World Fantasy Award nominee Yoon Ha Lee’s story collection, to include the current short fiction from the Hexarachate setting of NINEFOX GAMBIT along with new previously unpublished stories, to be published in 2018, sold to Jonathan Oliver at Solaris via Jennifer Jackson.

RT Book Reviews: Priest continues to cement her reputation as a master of modern gothic with a haunted house tale that’s a slow burn with an utterly addictive finale. Though it feels like more could be done with the ghosts of the Withrow house, the living characters do more than their fair share of lifting with interactions that are charming and funny. That said, fans and new readers should walk away satisfied and just a little bit worried when in the […]

Joy Peskin at Farrar, Straus Children’s has acquired award-winning playwright Mariah MacCarthy’s Squad, about a cheerleader who suddenly becomes alienated by her best friend and cheer squad and is set out to discover who she is without the things that always defined her. It’s planned to publish in Fall 2018; Katie Shea Boutillier of Donald Maass Literary Agency brokered the deal for world rights.

Simon Pulse has pre-empted, with Liesa Abrams to edit, world English rights to Feral Youth, a novel with 10 authors edited by Shaun David Hutchinson, in the same vein as his previous Violent Ends. The book is a modern YA retelling of The Canterbury Tales, set during the last three days at a survival camp for “troubled youth” with 10 teens trying to win $100 by telling the best story, with stories from Brandy Colbert, Tim Floreen, Ellen Hopkins, Justina […]

NPR: But it was that rare ability of Kowal’s to make what could have been a completely goofy add-on to the British war effort into something that felt completely wedded and solid that sold me ­ that spark of a great idea, well-executed. It is a story that just works. That lays out a presumption (ghosts are real), builds a plot architecture around it (they might be useful intelligence assets), and then grounds it with emotional weight (those forced to talk […]

Booklist: The destruction or ending of the world as we know it is a common backdrop for examining elements of humanity. The numerous ways in which humanity and our world are going to crash and burn are terrifying and fascinating. Malfi adds an interesting new angle to the mix by placing the story in a world infected by the Wanderer’s Folly, a disease that blurs the lines between dreams and reality. While the disease and its impact on the human race […]

Booklist: In Priest’s gothic haunted-house story, workers at failing architectural salvage company are given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reverse their fortunes, if they can survive the ghosts plaguing the property. Dahlia Dutton, the daughter of Music City Salvage’s owner, loves old houses. She’s still sore over losing her own beautifully restored home in her divorce. Once Dahlia arrives at the grand, well-preserved Withrow estate in the Tennessee mountains, she wishes she could save it; instead, she and her crew­ — her […]