Photo By Lisa Blaschke
Deadline: Martha Wells’ bestselling Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning book series The Murderbot Diaries, is being adapted by Chris and Paul Weitz (About a Boy) and Paramount Television Studios.
Apple TV+ has picked up 10 episodes starring and executive produced by Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård (Succession). The Weitz brothers are writing, directing and producing under their Depth of Field banner. Andrew Miano also executive produces alongside for Depth of Field. David S. Goyer executive produces alongside Keith Levine for Phantom Four. Wells will serve as consulting producer. Wells is represented by Jennifer Jackson at the Donald Maass Literary Agency and WME.
After an auction, L.J. Andrews has sold world rights to the first two books in her new Stonegate romantasy series to Kristine Swartz at Ace. The deal was negotiated by Katie Shea Boutillier at the Donald Maass Literary Agency. Broken Souls and Bones is set for summer 2025. (Details about the second book are not yet available.) Boutillier said Broken Souls follows a young woman “with a unique form of bone melder magic” who is “forced into the service of a power-hungry king and is determined to escape—until she falls for the prince’s silent guard and their forbidden passion unravels a deadly truth.”
Orbit UK will publish a stunning epic fantasy trilogy from debut author M. H. Ayinde. The first book in the series, A SONG OF LEGENDS LOST, will be published in spring 2025 and launches a gripping tale of revenge and rebellion in a vividly drawn world inspired by multiple pre-colonial cultures. Editor Emily Byron acquired rights from Jennie Goloboy.
Author of THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE and LAST TO LEAVE THE ROOM Caitlin Starling’s next novel GRACEVIEW, a hospital gothic in which a patient is haunted by an unseen force while undergoing a high-risk new treatment for her incurable disease, to Michael Homler at St Martin’s Press, in a good deal, in a two-book deal, by Caitlin McDonald. (World)
Jim Butcher and Kerrie Hughes’s PARANORMAL PAYBACK, continuing their urban fantasy anthology series, with stories about the desire for revenge (including works by Jim Butcher, Holly Black, Kim Harrison, Faith Hunter, Seanan McGuire, and others), to Anne Sowards at Ace, by Jennifer Jackson at Donald Maass Literary Agency for Butcher and Lucienne Diver at The Knight Agency for Hughes.
New York Times bestselling author of The Hollows, Kim Harrison, sold FIRST CONTACT, TOTALITY, and EMERGENCE. With story roots born after the author witnessed the 2017 eclipse, the epic tale begins in the wake of a solar eclipse. A portal between our world and a paranormal realm opens—and a scientist’s life will never be the same, in this new thrilling serialized adventure: Eclipsed Evolution. Executive Editor Anne Sowards at Penguin Random House / Ace acquired rights via Jennifer Jackson. To be released back to back in April, May and June 2024.
Author of TINDERBOX and TAROTMANCER, WA Simpson’s THE HATTER’S DAUGHTER, the third in the Riven Isles Series, which follows a magical woman as she teams up with the Prince of Hearts in Wonderland against the infamous Rot, to Don D’Auria at Flame Tree Press, by Anne Tibbets. (world English)
Nebula, Aurora, and World Fantasy award-winning author Premee Mohamed’s ONE MESSAGE REMAINS, a novella about one man’s mission to recover the remains and souls of enemy soldiers after the latest round of a seemingly neverending war, to E. Catherine Tobler at Psychopomp by Michael Curry.
Newbery Honor-winning Darcie Little Badger’s SHEINE LENDE, a prequel to the Locus Award-winning ELATSOE, in which a young girl searches for her mother and a lost child – spirited away by a mysterious faery ring – as well as a return to her family’s homeland, again illustrated by Rovina Cai, to Nick Thomas at Levine Querido in an exclusive submission by Michael Curry for publication in spring 2024.