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).

2023 World Fantasy Awards Finalists

Aug 072023
 

A huge congratulations to all our DMLA authors who were named as finalists in this years World Fantasy Awards!

Best Novella
  • Even Though I Knew the End, C.L. Polk (Tordotcom)
Best Short Fiction
  • “The Devil Don’t Come with Horns”, Eugen Bacon (Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology)
  • “Incident at Bear Creek Lodge”, Tananarive Due (Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology)
  • “Douen”, Suzan Palumbo (The Dark 3/22)
  • “The Morning House”, Kate Heartfield (PodCastle 7/22)
Best Collection
  • Breakable Things, Cassandra Khaw (Undertow)

Special Award – Non-Professional

  • E. Catherine Tobler, for editing “The Deadlands”

2023 British Fantasy Awards

Jul 272023
 

Congratulations to DMLA authors Cassandra Khaw and Eugen Bacon for making the 2023 British Fantasy Awards shortlist! 

Best Collection
  • Breakable Things – Cassandra Khaw (Undertow Publications)
Best Non-fiction
  • An Earnest Blackness – Eugen Bacon (Anti-Oedipus Press)

The Chatelaine by Kate Heartfield

Jul 202023
 

The year is 1328 and Bruges is under siege by the Chatelaine of Hell and her army of chimeras – —creatures forged in the deep fires of the Hellbeast.

At night, revenants crawl over the walls and bring plague and grief to this city of widows. Margriet de Vos learns she’s a widow herself when her good-for-nothing husband comes home dead from the war. But he didn’t come back for her. The revenant who was her husband pulls a secret treasure of coins and weapons from under his floorboards and goes back through the mouth of the beast called Hell.

Margriet killed her first soldier when she was eleven. She’s buried six of her seven children. She’ll do anything for her daughter, even if it means raiding Hell itself to get her inheritance back.

Margriet’s daughter Beatrix is haunted by a dead husband of her own, and blessed, or cursed, with an enchanted distaff that allows her to control the revenants and see the future.

Together with a transgender man-at-arms who has unfinished business with the Chatelaine, a traumatised widow with a giant water-powered forgehammer at her disposal, and a wealthy alderman’s wife who escapes Bruges with her children, Margriet and Beatrix forge a raiding party the likes of which Hell has never seen…

Starred Review: Knock, Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson

Jul 202023
 

Publishers Weekly: Transporting readers to a blood-soaked Ireland, Sharpson (When the Sparrow Falls) delivers modern horror at its best. One stormy night in 1979, Etain comes across a faceless corpse on the road; days later, she’s found half dead near a burnt-out farmhouse, her shattered mind a blank. Then, one of her twin daughters disappears in 1989, and soon after, her husband is found dead in a suspected suicide. By 2003, the only person still looking for an explanation to this mysterious series of events is Etain’s surviving daughter, Ashling, a university drama student who’s just entering into a passionate love affair with a woman. Ashling’s convinced, however, that what she remembers of her sister’s disappearance can’t possibly be true: it involved a popular children’s TV show about a goat puppet that would only come out of his box if someone had been very bad. According to everyone else who watched the show, the box never actually opened—but Ashling remembers it differently, and the more she investigates, the more she comes to fear that what’s inside is no cuddly puppet, but something old, crafty, and hungry. Sharpson does a masterful job of weaving together the three timelines, handling each story with tremendous sensitivity and skill while supplying genuine scares. By turns tender and terrifying, sexy and stomach-turning, heartwarming and heartrending, this folklore-steeped exploration of generational trauma is a high-water mark for the Irish horror novel.

Review: The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield

Jul 062023
 

Publishers Weekly: Heartfield (The Chatelaine) injects some magic into European history with this lush and enchanting outing. In 1768, close-knit sisters Charlotte and Antoine, daughters of the Habsburg emperor, are sent their separate ways to marry powerful husbands: Charlotte to Naples and the brutish King Ferdinand, and Antoine to France, where she is renamed Marie Antoinette and weds the future King Louis XVI. Isolated and alone, the two rely on lessons from a book of spells they discovered as children to reclaim power over their lives while trying to do right for their respective nations. As tension mounts both politically and in the magical world, the sisters find themselves on opposing sides, turning from close confidants to bitter rivals. Heartfield’s accounts of both queens are detailed and insightful, with a fresh take on Marie Antoinette and a fascinating look at her less famous sister. The magic system, which demands a sacrifice for each spell cast, is a cool concept, but in execution it’s a bit murky and occasionally feels like an afterthought to the story at hand. Still, fans of historical novels looking for just a touch of the fantastic are sure to be sucked in.

Assassin’s Creed: The Resurrection Plot by Kate Heartfield

Jul 042023
 

Cairo, 1869. When a bomb goes off at the Khedivial Opera House celebrating the opening of the new Suez Canal, visiting Assassin Pierrette Arnaud investigates, only to uncover a plot to eradicate free will… To her surprise, her old friend and teacher Simeon Price arrives in Egypt on the same trail, seven years after they allied to stop the Templars in London. But there’s no time to reminisce as the Templars maneuver Europe and Africa like pieces on a chessboard, wreaking havoc on a global scale. As Simeon and Pierrette race to stop further attacks, they unearth plans suggesting a mysterious tower is the key to the ultimate Templar takeover… and with the puzzling Engine of History in their grasp, the Assassins might be outmatched at last.

June Translation Rights Deals

Jun 302023
 

Finnish rights to Nebula and Hugo Award winner Martha Wells’ ROGUE PROTOCOL and EXIT STRATEGY, the third and fourth installments in the New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries series, to Hertta Kustannus Oy, by Rik Kleuver at Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

French renewal rights to New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s FURIES OF CALDERON, the first book in the Codex Alera series, to Bragelonne, by Marie-France Heinic at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Croatian rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, EXIT STRATEGY, NETWORK EFFECT, and FUGITIVE TELEMETRY, the first six titles in the Murderbot Diaries series, to V.B.Z., by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Chinese rights to James Scott Bell’s POWER UP YOUR FICTION, to China Renmin University Press, by Yijhen Lee at The Grayhawk Agency in association with Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.

Spanish rights to Sue Burke’s SEMIOSIS, to Dolmen, by Elena Rodriguez at International Editors Co. in association with Katie Shea Boutillier for Jennie Goloboy.

Spanish audio rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the first four titles in the Murderbot Diaries series, to Recorded Books, by Elena Rodríguez at International Editors Co. in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Chinese rights to Ronald Malfi’s COME WITH ME and BLACK MOUTH, to Sharp Point Press, by Gray Tan of The Grayhawk Agency, in association with Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Review: Suborbital 7 by John Shirley

Jun 122023
 

Publishers Weekly: Shirley (Halo: Broken Circle) veers from gaming fiction to near-future military techno-thriller in this competent, straightforward novel of U.S. Army Rangers in space. Lt. Art Burkett’s marriage is failing due to his wife’s worries over his continuous insertion into dangerous missions, when he is yanked away yet again, this time into a hostage rescue that involves a drop from space. The mission runs into complications: an undercover agent is killed by friendly fire, the agent’s brother vows vengeance, and the Russians look to solidify their hold on near-Earth orbit by finishing off the spacecraft carrying Burkett and company back to safety. Shirley includes most of the archetypes common to military adventure fiction, including the officer torn between public and private duty, the spy whose suspicions are not mere paranoia, the gruff leader who stands up to the Big Brass, and the Big Brass themselves, whose pettiness is paid for by personal sacrifice. Sure-footed descriptions of spaceflight and the toils of working without gravity enhance the plot without the technobabble ever pulling focus from the soldiers as they fight for their lives and honor. Shirley’s fans will be pleased.

Suborbital 7 by John Shirley

Jun 062023
 

Lieutenant Art Burkett is called up to take part in a rescue mission. Three scientists have been kidnapped by the terrorist group Thieves in Law.

The rescue is swift. Art and his team return to military craft SubOrbital 7, intending to return to safety with hostages rescued and prisoners in tow. But Thieves in Law are not the only people looking for them. Art and his team must fight an ever-growing threat before time runs out for them, and possibly for the rest of the world.

May Translation Rights Deals

May 312023
 

Czech renewal rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the first four titles in the Murderbot Diaries series, to Dobrovský, by Lola Dunton at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

French rights to Brent Weeks’s NIGHT ANGEL NEMESIS, to Bragelonne by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.

Hungarian rights to New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s SIDE JOBS, the first collection of Dresden Files short fiction, to Delta Vision, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i Prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Italian rights to Peter McLean’s PRIEST OF GALLONS and PRIEST OF CROWNS, to Fanucci, in a two-book deal, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Jennie Goloboy.

Italian rights to Brent Weeks’s THE NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY (omnibus), to Marco Rana at Mondadori, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.

Polish rights to New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s THE QUEEN’S WEAPONS, the eleventh book in the Black Jewels series, to Initium, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Polish rights to Pam Godwin’s LESSONS IN SIN, to Kobiece, by Lola Dunton at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Polish rights to Brent Weeks’s NIGHT ANGEL NEMESIS, to Mag Jacek Rodek, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.

Serbian rights to New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s FOOL MOON and GRAVE PERIL, the second and third novels in the Dresden Files series, to Žestoka Izdavačka Radionica, by Sanja Stefanjesko at Prava i Prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Spanish rights to LJ Andrews’s CURSE OF SHADOWS, THORNS, COURT OF ICE AND ASH, and CROWN OF BLOOD AND RUIN, to Avery (Spain), in a three-book deal, by Elena Rodriguez at International Editors’, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Ukrainian rights to Robert McCammon’s BOY’S LIFE, SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD, THE QUEEN OF BEDLAM, and SWAN SONG, to Zhorzh (Ukraine), in a four-book deal, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Ukrainian rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ WITCH KING, plus THE CLOUD ROADS, THE SERPENT SEA, and THE SIREN DEPTH, the first three titles in the Books of the Raksura series, to Zhorzh, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Ukrainian rights to New York Times bestselling author Tamsyn Muir’s GIDEON THE NINTH, HARROW THE NINTH, and NONA THE NINTH, the first three books in the Locked Tomb series, to Vivat, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

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