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: The Law by Jim Butcher

Sep 072022
 

AudioFile: Author Jim Butcher made the right choice in performing his latest work himself. It’s a masterpiece. He said that his usual narrator, James Marsters, has nothing to fear, but Butcher’s first attempt at narration is an unqualified success. He has a great speaking voice and truly relates to his characters. The emotion he puts into the work comes across in the wide variety of characters, who include an elderly magician/lawyer, a stupidly stubborn antagonist, and various creatures that inhabit the world of wizard/private investigator Harry Dresden. The brief work is a delight from start to finish, and Butcher’s youthful satisfaction comes across on every page. This may be Butcher’s first attempt at performing his own work, but let’s hope it won’t be his last.

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (July 2022)
The award is given by AudioFile to truly exceptional titles that excel in narrative voice and style, characterizations, suitability to audio, and enhancement of the text.

Review: Deathless Gods by P.C. Hodgell

Sep 012022
 

Publishers Weekly: Political infighting and battles between gods dog the Kencyrath people as they continue their 3,000-year war against Perimal Darkling in Hodgell’s byzantine 10th Kencyrath epic fantasy (after 2019’s By Demons Possessed). Jame, the lone female Highborn of House Knorth, takes command of the house troops to fulfill mercenary contracts with the native Rathillien king, Mordaunt, who schemes to raise himself to godhood. Meanwhile, Jame’s brother, Torisen, Highlord of the Kencyrath, worries that a poor harvest and a lack of payments from the Rathillien will leave his people fighting over food, and fears he’ll be left unable to help as the larger Houses push for more prestige and power on the High Council. Throughout, both siblings continue to manifest the power of the Tyr-ridan, avatars of the Three-faced God who abandoned the Kencyr ages ago. Hodgell’s intricate web requires careful reading—and extensive knowledge of the previous books—to follow, but the author repays her fans with a saga that flows neatly between the mythic and the mundane. There’s plenty of life left in this series.

August Subsidiary Rights Deals

Aug 312022
 

a pair of black ear budsAudio rights to LJ Andrews’s GAME OF HATE AND LIES and DANCE OF KINGS AND THIEVES, Book 5 and 6 of Broken Kingdom series, to Kate Runde at Podium Audio, in a two-book deal, by Katie Shea Boutillier (world English).

Audio rights to S.B. Divya’s novella RUNTIME, to Brian Sweany at Recorded Books, at auction, by Katie Shea Boutillie on behalf of Cameron McClure.

August Translation Rights Deals

Aug 312022
 

Arabic rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ THE CLOUD ROADS, the first novel in her Books of the Raksura series, to Noura Al Noman at Makhtoota 5229, by Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Chinese rights to Brent Weeks’s THE BURNING WHITE to Chongqing, by Clare Chi at The Grayhawk Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.

Dutch rights to Annika Martin’s RETURN BILLIONAIRE TO SENDER, JUST NOT THAT INTO BILLIONAIRES and BILLIONAIRE BUTTDIAL, to April, in a two-book deal, by Emma Lind and Philip Sane at Lennart Sane Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Starred Review: Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi

Aug 302022
 

Publishers Weekly: The four horror novellas of this wonderfully meta collection from Malfi (Come with Me) all turn on a vibrantly imagined theme that fans of macabre fiction will easily relate to: books as agents of horror….Malfi makes reading about the perils of reading a terrifying delight.

Review: Dead Man’s Hand by James. J. Butcher

Aug 252022
 

Library Journal: Auditors, the most skilled magical beings, are enforcers of the magical community in Boston for The Department of Unorthodox Affairs. Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby spent his youth training to become one of those elite, only to be dismissed by Samantha Mansgraf, one of the most powerful witches in the Department. When Mansgraf is found murdered, Grimsby becomes a suspect. Clearing his name will take all of Grimsby’s talent, along with some assistance from the legendary Huntsman and an unusual resident of Elsewhere, the magical space that overlays the regular world. As Grimsby searches for the truth, he will discover a complex plot that would not only take away his freedom, but impact both the supernatural Unorthodox and common Usual residents of his city. Butcher’s outcast protagonist and city setting ground the prose even as the mysterious Elsewhere introduces even more unusual action and questions for the future.

VERDICT: This debut from Butcher (son of “Dresden Files” novelist Jim Butcher) hits all the right notes for an entertaining urban fantasy series. Readers will want to see what happens next.

Review: It Rides A Pale Horse by Andy Marino

Aug 232022
 

Kirkus: There’s a lived-in sensibility to much of this novel that makes the horrific elements stand out even more, and Marino has a good eye for genuinely disturbing imagery…. this novel hums with a terrifying momentum…. A memorably visceral take on art, family, and power.

Review: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Aug 192022
 

Locus: …if you’re not already a fan, this is not the place to start. Go directly to Gideon the Ninth. If you love it, read Harrow the Ninth, and then read this. If you don’t love it, Nona the Ninth is not for you. Also, we can’t be friends. (Actually, let me dial that back – for all I know this is a valid place to start. Given Muir’s astonishing skill, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it turned out the books had been painstakingly constructed so you could read them in any order and be equally bewildered and delighted….)

So, the bottom-line question that confronts a reviewer of this book is, if you loved Gideon and Harrow, will you love Nona? And: obvs. You already know.

Nona the Ninth is very on brand in that it completely scraps the previous book. That’s right: all that painstaking lore and the complex relationships and shifting webs of allegiances you spent hundreds of pages learning? Right out the window. And – still on brand – it works, somehow.

Bottom line: Tamsyn Muir can do anything. Like Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, Nona keeps on attempting the most audacious, ridiculous, awe-inspiring feats of storytelling – and nailing it every single time. As an author I’d be nauseous with jealousy, if I wasn’t having such an ecstatic, blissful time. Nona the Ninth manages to be non-stop fun–and hilariously funny – and deeply, painfully, blisteringly moving. Sometimes all in the same paragraph.

2022 Dragon Award Finalists

Aug 172022
 

Congratulations to our DMLA authors who have been chosen as 2022 Dragon award finalist!

Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel

  • Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor
  • A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

Best Horror Novel

  • The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
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