Publisher Barbara Friend Ish of Mercury Retrograde Press bought an eight-novella series from Edward Morris, and a first novel from Leona Wisoker.
Morris—a 2009 Rhysling Award nominee—sold World English rights to an eight-novella series titled There Was a Crooked Man. It will appear under the company’s Hermes imprint first as a series of ebooks. Ish describes the story as “On an East Coast two centuries after Armageddon, a rogue soldier throws himself back in time to wreak havoc upon history and feed on the blood in the streets. He lands in the New World with the first white settlers. The Irrakwa try to stop him. And from two centuries ahead, the law tries to follow him back.”
Wisoker sold World English rights (except India) to her first novel, Secrets of Blood and Sand. Ish plans to publish it in trade paperback under the Mercury Retrograde imprint in Spring 2010. In this book, “Cafad Scratha, a powerful desert lord with a persecution complex, believes everyone is lying to him. When his obsession collides with the king’s efforts to rebuild the shattered realm, the orphaned street-thief Idisio and the king’s one-time lover Alyea become pawns in their multilayered game. The secret world into which Idisio and Alyea are drawn will not only change their lives: it will change them. Forever.”
Mercury Retrograde Press “publishes fantasy, science fiction, and interstitial works. Fantasy with a literary edge and character-driven science fiction are specialties of the house.”