One + one = three in Dutch author and Libris Prize winner Tomas Lieske‘s new novel My Sovereign Love about an artisan of arithmetic, his love interest, and a meddling monarch. Born in The Hague in 1528, Marnix de Veer is a mathematician, architect, and instrument-maker extraordinaire. Also a dabbler in foreign languages, he catches the ear of Spain’s King Philip II with his proficiency in Spanish. Philip, who speaks Spanish solamente, is impressed by the Dutchman, and invites him to join his entourage. Marnix soon finds himself living in the peculiar world of the Spanish court, his time filled with old-fashioned amusements and grand tournaments. In his spare time, he develops a numerical formula to predict his future based upon the year of his birth, and determines that he will find himself in the midst of a love triangle. When he falls for the ravishing courtier Isabel Osorio, he can only hope that she is not the one he will have to share. Alas, he soon discovers she is, and his competition is his old pal the king. Caught between love and loyalty, these historical characters are “imaginatively blended” as an “intriguingly complex relationship” develops between the two men. This “cool short story” has also been called “a crystal clear account of court happenings, as if a painting by an unknown, but rather perverted master, has been brought to life.” Rights to his latest have been sold to Kiepenheuer (Germany) with an offer from a Czech publisher and interest brewing among English, French, and Italian publishers. Rights are available from Floortje Jansen at Querido (Holland).
Reminiscent of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, the latest novel of software engineer turned author Martin Gülich puts him “squarely into the top class.” The Embrace features a thirty-eight-year-old pathology assistant with a low IQ named Dolf who has difficulty forming and maintaining relationships. In the league of, “it’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it,” his work consists of assisting his boss in cutting open corpses and examining their vital organs. His social life is limited to a daily lunch with his only friend, an overweight railway worker named Walter, as he’s had no luck with the ladies, his only experience being a split-second kiss with a female corpse. In addition, Dolf is plagued by a passion for a poster girl named Kristina, at whom he gazes from his bed, and for collecting butterflies. He painstakingly pins the defenseless creatures, always certain to use enough poison to prevent them from reviving. His antisocial behavior collides with his penchant for pinning when, one day, the girlfriend of a stab-wound victim, a blonde beautician named Natalie, enters the lab to identify her boyfriend’s body and wraps her arms around Dolf for consolation. As if that did not have enough of an emotional effect on him, Dolf is pushed right over the edge when he later discovers that Walter is sleeping with Natalie. His only course of action is to lull her to sleep as he does his butterflies. Rights have been picked up by Flammarion (France) and Ab Ovo Kiadó (Hungary). Contact Kathrin Scheel at Schöffling (Germany).
Shifting to Spain, Javier Moro’s Indian Passion, which has sold over 200,000 copies, recounts a true story that is so like a fairytale that it could only be written as fiction. Not “due to the need to invent anything,” according to the author, but because “it was the only possible way to tell this unbelievable story and to properly reflect the extraordinary atmosphere of the time.” On January 28, 1908, a young Spanish woman, sitting astride a luxuriously bejeweled elephant enters a small city in the north of India. Curious locals pack the streets, gawking at their new princess, Anita Delgado, who has just married the wealthy maharaja of Kapurthala. Moro, who has worked as a researcher for authors including Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, traveled throughout Europe and India to detail this extraordinary story of love and betrayal which caused one of the biggest scandals of the Indian Raj, an India that was soon to disappear forever. This whirlwind of flamenco music, jewels, Rolls Royces, and tiger hunts has been sold to Robert Laffont (France), Mondadori (Italy) Palatinus Kiadó (Hungary) and Dom Quixote (Portugal). Cristina Mora of Planeta (Spain) is the rights holder.
The title of Régis Jauffret’s new book, Insane Asylums, has been called a good synopsis of his entire oeuvre. Winner of the Prix Femina for 2005, Jauffret “is to French literature what Chabrol is to film: an outstanding stylist and a fascinating storyteller.” The new offering tells the story of an insane woman named Gisele who wants to rid herself of her own body. She paces back and forth in her empty apartment like a lioness, the remaining half of a couple which seemed to be in love, but which has since been torn asunder. Jauffret tells his story from different perspectives, moving from the baffled Gisele to the father of her former lover, Damien. He paints a cruel portrait of a family in this dark comedy, built on the premise that all families are microcosms of insane asylums. His style has been praised as “precise, elegant and cruel to an unparalleled degree.” Rights have been snatched up by Arbeiderspers (Holland), Prunsoop (Korea), and Dogan Kitap (Turkey) and are available from Anne-Solange Noble at Gallimard (France).
Representing Italy this month is Giorgio Todde’s The Balance of the Souls, part of a crime series which introduces readers to the beautiful, isolated and windswept island of Sardinia, much as the writings of Andrea Camilleri and Henning Mankell opened readers’ eyes to the landscapes, people, and mysteries of Sicily and Sweden. In the forgotten village of Abinei, the number of souls has always remained unchanged: 164. For every death there is a birth in this town of strange customs and unexplained mysteries. All that changes when three horrific murders occur one night after another, plunging the villagers into a state of fear. The first of five volumes featuring pioneering doctor Efisio Marini has been praised as “elegant and dark,” as well as “intriguing and unpredictable.” Rights have been sold to Piper (Germany), Albin Michel (France), De Bezige Bij (Holland), Siruela (Spain), Objetiva (Brazil), and WSOY (Finland). Linda Michaels holds the rights.
And last but not least, this will sadly be my final bestseller column for Publishing Trends as I am shuffling off to Berlin in a few weeks for some genuine German-language immersion. Please keep us posted with international news by emailing Sara Huneke at sara@marketpartnersinternational.com, and join me for some Spätzle, Spaten, and Spaß if you’re ever passing through Berlin!
