Weekend update

An emailed overdue notice reminded me that I still had the 1/28 issue of Publishers Weekly in my tote bag (bad librarian), and that I'd better post some info on new deals while I remembered.

If you want to know more about my exciting Saturday, read more here. Otherwise, on with the book news.

David Robbins is moving to Simon & Schuster from Bantam with his new novel, The Comfort Woman, which is "the story of a 19-year-old Korean girl forced into sexual slavery ... during WWII and her love for a young American internee at Los Banos, the Japanese internment camp in the Philippines." The sale was arranged through agent Tracy Fisher at William Morris.

Lynn Cullen's first two historical novels (for adults, I presume, as she's written for the YA market) were sold to Peternelle van Arsdale at Putnam via agent Emma Sweeney. The first of these, The Black Legend, is a biographical novel of Sofonisba Anguissola (ca 1532-1625), an Italian mannerist painter who joined the Spanish court of Felipe II (the husband of England's Mary I). Cullen has also written the YA historical I Am Rembrandt's Daughter, which I have not read, but am wondering if anyone else has.

While working on my time-slip chapter (done as of this afternoon, yeah!) I browsed through author Julianne Lee's website and noticed that her novel A Question of Guilt: A Novel of Mary Stuart and the Murder of Lord Darnley is listed as being published this fall. I am guessing that Berkley will be the publisher.

From Publishers Marketplace:

International Herald Tribune reporter Doreen Carvajal's SHARP NOTES, chronicling her search for her Sephardic roots in a small Andalusian town whose charming facade hides a history of violence and oppression, probing both her own family's past as well as the larger history of Spanish Jews during the Inquisition, to Jake Morrissey at Riverhead, for six figures, by Todd Shuster and Rachel Sussman at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (world English).

[This is nonfiction, but I've been interested in the story of the Sephardic Jews ever since reading Kathryn Lasky's Blood Secret, which I highly recommend if you haven't read it.]

Louis Maistros's THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS, a dark, beautifully written tale, shot through with flashes of magic realism, about New Orleans at the birth of the jazz age, to Matthew Miller at Toby Press, for publication in Fall 2009, by Barbara Braun at Barbara Braun Associates (World).

Manuel de Lope's BLOOD OF ANOTHER, in which two women are united and saved by a terrible secret during the Spanish Civil War, to Judith Gurewich at Other Press, in a nice deal, by Gloria Gutierrez at Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells (World English).

[The Spanish Civil War seems to be a popular setting these days - anyone else noticed?]

Eugenia Kim's NAJIN, following a young woman through the turbulent years of Korea's subjugation by the Japanese and its emergence into the modern world in the first half of the 20th century, to Helen Atsma at Holt, in a very nice deal, for publication in April 2009, by Judith Weber at Sobel Weber Associates (NA).

Author of non-fiction books including A THOUSAND DAYS IN VENICE, A THOUSAND DAYS IN TUSCANY, and A TASTE OF SOUTHERN ITALY Marlena de Blasi's first work of fiction AMANDINE, set in World War II-era France and Poland, about a young orphan girl whose birth has been kept a secret by a grandmother who has arranged for her care who goes in search of the truth, and the unknown mother whom she loves and feels she must protect, to Ballantine, with Pamela Cannon editing, by Rosalie Siegel of Rosalie Siegel, International Literary Agent (world).

And thanks to everyone who participated in the drawing. We'll probably do it again, at a later time, and with a different book, of course.