Mark Charan Newton has sold US rights to his first two fantasy novels to Chris Schluep at Del Rey. The deal, “for a good five-figure sum in US dollars”, was a subsidiary rights deal managed by Margaret Halton, who is the Rights Director at Pan Macmillan (agent John Jarrold originally sold world rights to the books to Tor UK in 2008).
The first book, Nights of Villjamur, will be published in hardcover in the UK this June.
Schluep said of the new deal: “I am so excited to be publishing Nights of Villjamur, which is an absolutely wonderful book, and I’m very much looking forward to launching the US career of an important and talented new writer in the field. I’m convinced that Mark has a bright future ahead of him; he’s one of those writers that you come across only on occasion.”
In Nights, “an impending Ice Age looms over all other events in the book, which include the death of an Emperor and his daughter’s return to claim the throne, a crime noir plot that involves the city’s Councillors in high-profile murders and a cocky womaniser who is acting as dance tutor to the new Empress’s sister.” We first reported the sale of the book in this article in January 2008.