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Brown UK. The book has sold in the U.K. and was preempted in Canada.■ Browder’s New ‘Order’ Back to S&S
Simon & Schuster bought Freezing Order, the follow-up to
Bill Browder’s 2015 nonfiction bestseller Red Notice. The
new book, subtitled A True Story of Russian Money Laun-
dering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir
Putin’s Wrath, is, S&S said, “a real-life thriller” that follows
up on the events the author detailed in his earlier book—
namely, how as a Moscow-based hedge fund manager, “he
was expelled from Russia after exposing corruption at the
companies he invested in.” Browder’s Russian lawyer was
subsequently arrested and murdered; Freezing Order, S&S continued, explains
“how Browder has gone after the people who received the $230 million that his
lawyer was killed over.” Priscilla Painton bought North American rights from
Patrick Walsh at Pew Literary.■ Fugett Has Her ‘Day’ at Dial
The debut memoir Alive Day by Karie Fugett was acquired
by Dial Press’s Whitney Frick at auction. The book is about,
the publisher said, a woman “thrust into the role of care-
giver after her husband of just three months returned from
Iraq with a debilitating injury.” The publisher elaborated
that the book was “pitched as centering the experience of
the many thousands of military spouses and caregivers—
mostly women, often poor—who never deployed but whose lives have been no
less affected by America’s forever wars.” Chris Clemans at Janklow & Nesbit
handled the North American rights agreement for Fugett.■ Morrow Ties Royal ‘Knot’
In a six-figure acquisition, William Morrow inked a three-
book U.S., Canadian, and open market rights agreement
with British author SJ Bennett for a crime series featuring
Queen Elizabeth II. In the books, the queen is an amateur
detective who, Morrow said, “solves crimes in secret and
behind the scenes, in between her royal duties.” David
Highfill at Morrow won the books at auction from Grainne
Fox at Fletcher & Company (who brokered the deal on behalf of U.K. agent Charlie
Campbell at Kingsford Campbell). To date, the series had also sold in Germany,
Hungary, Italy, Spain and the U.K. Book one, The Windsor Knot, is slated for spring- Bennett has written 10 books for teenagers.
■ Experiment Nets Squid Book
The Experiment’s Matthew Lore took world rights (sans Japan) to marine biolo-
gist Danna Staff’s Monarchs of the Sea. Lore won the title at auction from Stacey
Kondla at the Rights Factory. The agency said the book (previously published
by UPNE as Squid Empire) charts “the 500-million-year evolutionary history of
cephalopods.”WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 7BrowderFugettBennettMOVIE DEALS
INTERNATIONAL
DEALS● Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films and
Amazon Studios optioned Samantha
Downing’s debut novel, My Lovely
Wife (Berkley). The book, which was
released in paperback on March 3, is
a Best First Novel nominee for the
2020 Edgar Awards.
● Ace Entertainment (which
produced To All the Boys I’ve
Loved Before) optioned Abigail
Hing Wen’s debut YA novel,
Loveboat, Taipei. The sale of the
now-bestselling book was reported
in this column; HarperTeen won it
for high six figures after a six-
house auction. It was described by
the publisher as “a YA Crazy Rich
Asians meets a Jane Austen
comedy of manners.”● U.K.-based publisher HQ
signed children’s author Anna
Wilson’s adult memoir, about her
mother’s late-in-life autism diag-
nosis, A Place for Everything. The
Bookseller reported that HQ will
publish the title, which it bought
world rights to, in summer 2020.
● The Basque nonfiction book
Miñan has been preempted in
Italy by Feltrinelli. The author,
Amets Arzallus, is a singer who
specializes in a kind of music
local to the Basque region, and
the book is his life story. The
title has yet to be published in
Spain, where Blackie Books has
acquired Spanish and Catalan
rights. (The memoir was published
in Basque in November 2019.)
SalmaiaLit is handling rights for
the work.© LEAH
NASH
© PETER
LINDBERGH
© KT
BRUCE