Three deals and not much more

We saw "The Holiday" earlier this evening up in Savoy... of course, my ears perked up when the Jude Law character said that his father wrote historical fiction. A very respectable profession. Then I had to see whether I recognized any titles on his bookshelves (Lalita Tademy's Cane River was one of them, for the record; he has good taste).

Things may be quiet around here for a while, as all the book reviews for Feb 2007' s HNR are arriving, and I'm in the midst of reading a decent but slow-moving review book. But for now, here are some deals from Publishers Lunch on Friday.

Gerri Brightwell's THE DARK LANTERN, about the secrets in a Victorian London household and how they affect the master's experiments in establishing identity through body measurements, to Allison McCabe at Crown, for six figures, in a pre-empt, for publication in spring 2008, by Zoe Fishman at Lowenstein-Yost (world). (The author's website includes the opening pages)

C.J. Sansom's WINTER IN MADRID, a spy thriller set in 1940s Spain, again to Kathryn Court at Viking, for publication in winter 2008, by Jean Naggar of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, for Antony Topping of Greene & Heaton (US).
(Glad to see this one is being published in the US, finally)

National commentator and columnist Robin Gerber's ELEANOR VERSUS IKE, a fictional reimagining (inspired by actual events) of what would have happened if Eleanor Roosevelt ran for president against Eisenhower in 1952, to be published just in time for the historic 2008 presidential primaries, to Sarah Durand at William Morrow, by Stephanie Tade at the Stephanie Tade Agency.

Lastly, there are a couple editorial positions open at the HNS Newsletter. The newspapers described have online book review sections, so geography isn't a factor (you don't need to be British to cover British papers). For details, contact Sarah Cuthbertson at the email at the end of this announcement:

***WANTED: Editors!!***Lucienne and Sarah will both be leaving the HNS Newsletter at the end of January 2007. Ideally, from 1 February 2007 we'd like at least one new editor to cover one or more British newspapers. Obviously, the more editors the merrier as it would spread the load. The job means scanning newspaper book review pages for reviews of historical fiction and non-fiction and pasting the details (book title and author, name of newspaper, review date, name of reviewer, review URL) into a newsletter template under the relevant headings. For historical fiction add a taster quote from the review; for non-fiction only add a quote or description if the topic isn't obvious from the title. It takes about 30-45 minutes per newspaper per week. The links are then sent to the co-ordinating editor who compiles each issue and posts it to the members once a fortnight via Yahoo Groups. At present the editors take turns as co-ordinator for 2 months each. For more details, if needed, contact sarah76cuthbert@aol.com