Photo credit: Brian Adams
Adele Buck’s HEARTS ON FIRE, in which an English professor tries to torch her ex-boyfriend’s piano after a problematic attempt at winning her back and falls for the firefighter who answers the 911 call, to John Jacobson at a new unnamed imprint at Harlequin, in a three-book deal, by Katie Shea Boutillier.
A cherished heirloom opens up a century of secrets in a bittersweet novel about family, hard truths, and self-discovery by the author of Millicent Glenn’s Last Wish.
Melanie Barnett thinks she has it all together. With an ex-fiancé and a pending promotion at a Kentucky bourbon distillery, Melanie has figured out that love and career don’t mix. Until she makes a discovery while cleaning her Jordan MX car, a scarlet-red symbol of the Jazz Age’s independent women that she inherited from her great-great-great-aunt Violet. Its secret compartment holds Violet’s weathered journal―within it an intriguing message: Take from this story what you will, Melanie, and you can bury the rest. Melanie wonders what more there is to learn from Violet’s past.
In 1921 Violet Bond defers to no one. Hers is a life of adventure in Detroit, the hub of the motorcar boom and the fastest growing city in America. But in an era of speakeasies, financial windfalls, free-spirited friends, and unexpected romance, it’s easy to spin out of control.
Now, as Melanie’s own world takes unexpected turns, her life and Violet’s life intersect. Generations apart, they’re coming into their own and questioning what modern womanhood―and happiness―really means.
Alison Romig at Delacorte has bought, in a preempt, debut author Matthew Hubbard’s Last Boyfriends, a YA coming of age novel pitched as Heartstopper meets The First Wives Club, featuring three queer teenage boys in small-town Alabama who set out to get revenge on their ex-boyfriends and end up fighting their school’s anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives, and a second untitled book. Publication is slated for summer 2024; Katie Shea Boutillier brokered the deal for world English rights.
Kirkus: A thoughtful meditation on some weighty questions wrapped in a well-drawn romance.
Credit: Gracemarie Photography
Liz Alterman’s SAD SACKED, originally published by Audible Originals, a humorous, poignant memoir that chronicles the 17-month period after both the author and her husband, long-time media professionals, unexpectedly lost their jobs within six weeks of one another, to Jessica Bell at Vine Leaves, by Katie Shea Boutillier.
New Orleans: live music, endless drinks, brightly-coloured attractions, the perfect place for a party…
The bride-to-be
The best friend
The cousin
The mother-in-law
The sister
The groom’s friend
The bachelorette begins on a Friday night; all six women are excited for a chance to escape their everyday lives. But then friendly rivalries turn vicious, and a game of truth or dare turns deadly.
By the end of the weekend one of them will be dead…
Audio 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.
Photo credit: Sue Grubman
Authors of THE ROUGHEST DRAFT Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka’s THE BREAK-UP TOUR, pitched as a Taylor Swift-inspired romance about a singer whose breakout album is about all of her ex-boyfriends, including the one from college she never got over, and who is now joining her on tour, to Kristine Swartz at Berkley, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2024, by Katie Shea Boutillier.
Audio rights to N.S. Perkins’s THE INFINITY BETWEEN US, to Cassie Hanjian at Podium Audio, by Katie Shea Boutillier.
One warm summer night twenty-five years ago, Liza Gold and her friends celebrated their high school graduation with a party on the beach. It should have been the best night of their lives, only one of them never came back out of the ocean.
The tragedy haunted Liza Gold for years. Now, she’s a recently divorced working mom struggling to connect with her standoffish teenager daughter Zoe when history repeats itself. Another young woman has drowned at Beach Week, and this time the victim is Zoe’s secret best friend.
Liza begins to suspect that the two deaths are somehow related, which causes her to face hard truths and take an unflinching look at the people she’s called her closest friends for the past two decades. She must discover what really happened to both women before it’s too late.