David Drake at Crown acquired world rights to The Look by Michelle Obama (pictured l. Photo credit: Miller Mobley) from Deneen Howell at Williams & Connolly, with U.K. and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, sold to Alison Starling at Octopus and German rights to Prestel Verlag. Gillian Blake will edit for Crown, which called the illustrated book “a journey through Michelle Obama’s style evolution, from the moment she entered the public eye through her time as the first Black first lady and today as one of the country’s most influential figures.” Publication is set for November.

Sara Nelson at HarperCollins bought world English rights to a new novel by Lisa Barr, tentatively titled Dirt Bitch, from Stéphanie Abou at Massie, McQuilkin and Altman. The book, Nelson said, represents “the perfect mash-up of Barr’s interests: love, war, art, and women taking charge,” and follows, per the agency, “a graffiti artist with a secret identity—think: female Banksy—and a rogue CIA agent, who join forces to hunt down an elusive terrorist hired by neo-Nazis to settle a WWII score now—utilizing art as a weapon of deception.” No publication date has been announced.

Peter Blackstock at Grove Atlantic picked up North American rights to John of John by Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart from Anna Stein at CAA. The publisher called it “a singular novel about duty and patience and the transformative power of the truth, and a portrait of a close-knit community and a fraying family following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home.” Foreign rights have sold to Picador in the U.K. and in six other territories. Publication is set for May 2026.

Ed Schlesinger at Gallery won North American rights, at auction, to Stormraven by Kelsea Yu from Jennifer Azantian, who has an eponymous shingle, with Daniel Carpenter at Titan picking up U.K. rights. The publisher called the book a “Rebecca-inspired modern gothic horror rooted in Chinese American history, in which an ambitious artist uncovers the chilling secrets of a haunted mansion on a private Pacific Northwest island with a whitewashed past.” Publication is set for 2026.

Alex Littlefield at Little, Brown purchased U.S. rights, at auction, to The Savage Mind by David Treuer from Adam Eaglin at the Cheney Agency. The book, the publisher said, is “a historical and personal exploration of America’s fractured identity, interweaving Treuer’s story of growing up on the Leech Lake Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota with the experiences of his parents, a Jewish Holocaust refugee and the first American Indigenous woman judge, to reveal how frontier violence has defined our country, our culture, and our very selves.” No publication date has been announced.

In Brief

  • Emily Krump at William Morrow bought U.S., Canadian, and open market rights, at auction, to The Real Lives of Serial Killer Wives and three other thrillers by Jeneva Rose from Celeste Fine at Park, Fine & Brower. Pub dates TBD.
  • Krishan Trotman at Legacy Lit acquired world rights to Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines by former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre from Steve Troha at Folio Literary Management, for an October release.
  • Andy Ward at Random House picked up world rights to former CIA director William J. Burns’s Diplomat Spy: A Memoir of Espionage in Revolutionary Times from Gail Ross at WME. Pub date TBD.
  • Harriet LeFavour at Bloomsbury USA and Rowan Yapp at Bloomsbury UK bought world rights, at auction, to restaurateur Thomas Straker’s debut cookbook, Food You Want to Eat, from Honor Spreckley at RCW Literary Agency, for release in August 2025.
  • Naomi Huffman and Julia Ringo at Hagfish took North American rights, unagented, to Man Hating Psycho by Iphgenia Baal, a story collection set in the late aughts, for publication in October.