Dear writers: Please be aware of ongoing scams by agent impersonators. Use extra caution with any unsolicited offers from agents. Reputable agents will not ask for upfront fees of any kind. For more information, look at sites such as Writer Beware (https://writerbeware.blog/). Please always check email addresses/spellings. All official emails from Donald Maass Literary Agency will come from an address that ends in @maassagency.com (2 A's, 2 S's in MAASS).

Review: Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

Apr 242023
 

Booklist: After fighting for her position in Trouble with the Cursed (2022), Cincinnati subrosa (demon leader) Rachel Morgan must deal with an old enemy. Walter returns with a horde of alpha weres from outside the city, hoping to steal power over the city’s werewolves from Rachel’s ally David. On top of that, Rachel is being investigated by the coven of moral and ethical standards, initially for using an illegal dark curse and then for murder she didn’t commit. Coincidentally, Rachel’s lover, Trent, is suddenly being investigated for illicit genetic endeavors and Brimstone trade, plunging both their lives into more chaos than usual. After a rescue that involves trading with sullen demon Dali while hiding in the ever after, Rachel and Trent learn that the coven is planning to block demons from returning to reality, led by none other than Walter’s ally the Mage, and launch themselves into action to prevent it. Harrison delivers another page turner in the Hollows series, leaving readers wondering how Rachel will emerge from this crisis and which of her allies will survive it with her.

Review: The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Apr 212023
 

Booklist: In this viciously dark fantasy, a horrific siren who can’t speak, thanks to a cruel husband who captured her and cut out her tongue, and a plague doctor who has watched the kingdom succumb to a plague impossible for them to stop leave their now-desolate city in search of a new adventure. When the two creatures stumble on a sinister cult of children who believe gods can resurrect them, their interest is piqued. But then, in the snow-covered, frigid forest, they meet the children’s gods, the kind of monsters who enjoy taking apart a child and stitching it back together, and the siren and the doctor realize that it will take quick thinking, sharp teeth, and a lot of courage to get out alive. This novella is short but action-packed, unctuous, and deliciously creepy, a mash-up of Angela Carter’s dark fairytale retellings and the poetic love story core of This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (2019). The book is overflowing with eerie body horror, sensory details of cold snow and warm blood, and terrifying monsters (both protagonists and villains).

2023 Lammy Finalist: The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett

Apr 202023
 

Congratulations to DMLA author Ruby Barrett who has been nominated as a 2023 Lammy finalist in the LGBTQ+ Romance and Erotica category for The Romance Recipe!

Review: Hybrid Heart by Iori Kusano

Apr 102023
 

Library Journal: Kusano, an Asian American living in Tokyo, makes their debut with this novella set in a near-future Japan, where people have software apps installed in their bodies that allow them to interact online in their minds, and human pop stars compete for fame against digital vocaloid singers. Rei is a human “idol,” an entertainer with a corporate manufactured image created for purely commercial purposes. She loves to sing and aspired to this life, but then her singing partner Ririko abandoned their idol life for love. Now Rei is even more strictly managed by Kosaka, who controls every aspect of her life from her songs and performances to what she eats and where she goes. Rei tries to navigate handling Kosaka and garnering more fame while still missing Ririko and obsessing over singer LYRICO, who hides behind an avatar. When Kosaka takes on a new, younger singer, Rei begins to see her life for what it is more clearly and has to decide what she wants for herself.

VERDICT Give this to fans of manga and anime for an insightful, speculative glimpse into Japanese pop culture.

Starred Review: The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Apr 072023
 

Library Journal: What if the Little Mermaid laid eggs and her hatched children’s hunger laid waste to her prince’s land? Khaw’s (Breakable Things) latest novella tackles this question with a brutally visceral but seductive opening sequence. The mermaid, who’s been held captive and rendered mute by her husband, meets up with the only survivor in the land, a plague doctor. They soon come upon a band of children gleefully hunting another child at the direction of their keepers, “The Saints,” three adult cult leaders who rebuild the near-death child with parts taken from themselves. Told in three sections, each satisfyingly complete as its own story, and ending with a cliff-hanger, this compelling tale features strong worldbuilding, innovative uses of body-horror tropes, lush language, and a captivatingly direct narration as it takes the protagonists and readers on a journey to contemplate what it means to be “saved”.

VERDICT With this brilliantly constructed tale that consciously takes on a well-known story and violently breaks it open to reveal a heartfelt core, Khaw cements their status as a must-read author. For fans of sinister, thought-provoking, horrific retellings of Western classics by authors of marginalized identity like Helen Oyeyemi and Ahmed Saadawi.

Review: Dual Memory by Sue Burke

Apr 042023
 

Publishers Weekly: Burke (Symbiosis) explores art and artificial intelligence in this clever near-future adventure. The dual narrators, one human and one computer, meet on the small arctic island of Thule, run by altruistic doctors. Antonio Moro is a Bronzewing mercenary defending the island from the Leviathon League raiders bent on enslaving its civilians when he is blasted from a rusty garbage barge. Injured, he’s left to recover ashore, and secretly ordered by Bronzewing Captain Soliana to root out raider infiltrators. He’s also linked to a personal assistant program, Par Augustus (or “Venerable Companion”), one of only four extant independent intelligent machines. Illiterate Antonio, a self-taught artist who is invariably polite to machines, and Par, a prickly manipulator capable of well-meant deceit, make an unlikely duo, but together they just might be able to save Thule from the Leviathon League. Burke loads the story with fascinating characters as she probes how humanity’s artistic capacity to inspire might interact with AI’s flexible intelligence. This playful glimpse of nonthreatening human-machine interaction is sure to charm. (May)

March Subsidiary Rights Deals

Mar 312023
 

a pair of black ear budsAudio rights Robert McCammon’s SEVEN SHADES OF EVIL, book nine in the Matthew Corbett series, to Louise Quayle at Audible, by Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Cameron McClure.

Audio rights to LJ Andrews’s Reign of Stars and Fire, book eight in The Broken Kingdoms series, to Kate Runde at Podium Audio, by Katie Shea Boutillier.

 

March Translation Rights Deals

Mar 312023
 

French rights to USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw’s HAMMERS ON BONE and A SONG FOR QUIET, to Argyll, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry.

German rights to New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s CHANGES, GHOST STORY, COLD DAYS, SKIN GAME, PEACE TALKS, and BATTLE GROUND, Books 12-17 in the Dresden Files series, to Blanvalet, by Sarah Knofius at the Thomas Schlueck Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

German rights to LJ Andrew’s Curse of Shadows and Thorns, Court of Ice and Ash and Crown of Blood and Ruin, the first three books of The Broken Kingdoms series, to Blanvalet, in a pre-empt, by Sarah Knofius at Thomas Schlueck Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

German renewal rights to New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s FURIES OF CALDERON, ACADEM’S FURY, CURSOR’S FURY, CAPTAIN’S FURY, PRINCEPS’ FURY, and FIRST LORD’S FURY, the Codex Alera series, to Blanvalet, by Sarah Knofius at the Thomas Schlueck Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Italian rights to Seth Dickinson’s THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT, the first book in the Masquerade series, to Mondadori, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Italian kiosk edition rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the first four installments in the New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries series, to Mondadori, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Polish audio rights to New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s PEACE TALKS and BATTLE GROUND, the sixteenth and seventeenth novels in the Dresden Files series, plus renewal of audio rights on the first 11 novels in the series, to Storytel, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava i Prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Polish rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the first four installments in the New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries series, to MAG Jacek Rodek, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Polish rights to Ellen O’Clover’s SEVEN PERCENT OF RO DEVEREUX, to Kobiece, by Lola Dunton at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Review: Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai

Mar 292023
 

The New York Times: I’ve saved the sweetest book for last. BITTER MEDICINE by Mia Tsai, centers on Elle, a descendant of the Chinese god of healing who makes magical glyphs for a fairy bureaucracy and secretly pines for Lucien, a handsome, half-elf agent. When the glyphs work too well, saving Luc’s life but revealing Elle’s existence to the dangerous family members she’s running from, she and Luc will have to atone for the sins of their pasts while working out what they truly mean to each other.

There are so many joys in this paranormal. The wealth of languages, mythologies, religions and magicks are a weight that balances the emotional tenderness. Healing magic, rather than fighting magic, takes center stage — and without spoiling things too much, it’s also one of the rare paranormals to feature a heroine who loses rather than gains power. Tsai does not flinch from this grief: “The overhead lights cast her shadow, faint and watery, across her threshold, and that’s how she imagines she looks: magic-less and broken, a ghostly husk of herself.” In a subgenre that so often makes supernatural power the answer to problems, how refreshing to find one that says being mortal — being human, and happy, and safe — is purpose enough.

Deal: Carissa Ann Lynch

Mar 282023
 

Author photo of Carissa Ann Lynch.Carissa Ann Lynch’s THE TRAITORS, a locked-room thriller in which six outcasts are invited to spend the night in an abandoned manor in order to win a share of $1 million; the only catch is it was once the location of a mass murder, and every guest has their own agenda, to Jennie Rothwell at One More Chapter, in an exclusive submission, for publication in winter 2024, by Katie Shea Boutillier.

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