Friday, January 27, 2012

Trailer for THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST by Emily Danforth

THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST by Emily Danforth comes out February 7th from Balzer+Bray, and the book has already received starred reviews from three different publications!  View the incredible trailer and the reviews below!

Plus, if you want to learn more about the author and the book, you can view Danforth's website here and the book's Facebook page here.


The Miseducation of Cameron Post Book Trailer from emily danforth on Vimeo.

"[An] ambitious literary novel, a multidimensional coming-of-age...There is nothing superficial or simplistic here, and Danforth carefully and deliberately fleshes out Cam's character and that of her family and friends.  Even the eastern Montana setting is vividly realized." --Booklist, starred review

"Runs the gamut from heart-rending to triumphant, epic to mundane...Carefully crafted symbols provide a backbone for the story's ever-shifting array of characters and episodes, each rendered in vibrant, almost memoir-like detail...Handled with particular nuance...Even when events take a dark and gut-punchingly inevitable turn, the novel remains at its heart a story of survival and of carving out space even in a world that wants one's annihilation.  Rich with detail and emotion, a sophisticated read for teens and adults alike." --Kirkus, starred review

"The story is riveting, beautiful, and full of the kind of detail that brings to life a place (rural Montana), a time (the early 1990s), and a questioning teenage girl...Danforth's story gains even more complexity and dimension from [a] shift [halfway through], further developing the political, religious, and coming-of-age themes introduced in the first half...Cam's reckoning with her sexuality develops through a series of vignette-like early chapters that focus on the girls that come and go in Cam's life...creating narrative moments that will have teens rereading the sexy bits like an earlier generation did with Judy Blume's FOREVER." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

Friday, January 20, 2012

The Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc, Announces New Venture

Partners Jean Naggar and Jennifer Weltz of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc, are excited to announce a number of changes in the Agency in response to the expanding needs of our authors in an evolving market.

A New Venture for our Agency:
 
After great success placing over 70 back-list JVNLA titles with emerging publishers, The Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc, has expanded its services to offer co-agent representation to literary agencies for reprint rights in both electronic and print formats.

Unlike many Agencies in both the US and UK who have chosen to publish or help their clients self publish their authors' back-list, The Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency has taken a unique and successful approach to their authors' titles by pairing them up with emerging e-book or print and e-book publishers. Consequently, the JVNLA authors gain an added vested party in the re-release of the title.

Over the past two years, JVNLA has cultivated a number of relationships with a variety of players in the e-book/POD marketplace and continues to expand its understanding of this arena as new players emerge and opportunities evolve.

We are interested in partnering with agencies managing a back-list where original publication rights or e-rights were either clearly reserved by the author, or have reverted back to the author. Using the information we have compiled, we will strategize with the primary agent to find the best placement for the reprint rights, either with an e-book publishing partner or a more traditional print publisher. All other rights, outside of reprint rights in print and electronic formats, will continue to be managed by the primary agent.

Publishers Weekly on JVNLA's New Venture: link here.

Web Site:

To better assist our authors' efforts in Social Networking and outreach to readers, we at JVNLA have created an author/reader focused web-site which highlights our authors' current releases, their distinguished awards, and rave reviews. With over 1,000 titles sold out of the Agency, we were unable to list all of them on the site, but we have made available information on all of our authors as well as their hundreds of accolades.

To better help readers connect with authors, we have an active blog highlighting recent activity for our books and we offer direct help to Book Groups in making their title selections.

We no longer accept print queries but have streamlined our query process to better serve prospective clients.

International representation:

With sales in over 50 countries JVNLA is committed to finding the best representation around the world. Our new representatives in Israel and Holland are The Deborah Harris Agency and Mo Literary, respectively.

Personnel:

In an effort to further expand our reach into the Australian market, Laura Biagi will be directly selling our list in this territory. Laura will continue to assist both Agency partners, Jean Naggar and Jennifer Weltz, as well as assisting Jennifer Weltz in all Subsidiary-Rights submissions.

Contract and Royalties Manager, Tara Hart, will now also be overseeing and selling all e-reprint rights as well as managing the New Venture above with Jennifer Weltz.

CONTACT: Jennifer Weltz  
212-794-1082
jweltz@jvnla.com

Friday, January 13, 2012

Outstanding press for THE LAST NUDE

THE LAST NUDE by Ellis Avery was highlighted in my last post, but this book has received so many phenomenal reviews after only one week of publication that we wanted to put them all in the spotlight!

In addition to the reviews below, Avery was interviewed by NPR.  You can listen to the audio at this link.  She will be traveling to bookstores across the country t oread and answer questions about her book.  Learn which cities she'll be visiting at this link.

"A taut, elegant novel...[Avery's] prose sings." --More Magazine

"What's not to love about Ellis Avery's romantic novel, THE LAST NUDE?...We've been loving this tough-but-vulnerable heroine." --O Magazine

"A dark, sexy romp." --Kirkus

"The no-big-deal way that young Rafaela, the narrator, slips into prostitution in the opening chapters reveals something of Avery's vision: a gorgeous Parisian love story, but not a polite or idealized one...In THE LAST NUDE, the sex feels ripe and real and vital, the very element that artist, model, and masterwork together create, inhabit, and flourish within." --SF Weekly

"A fascinating look at love, art, and betrayal.  Highly recommended." --AfterEllen.com

"Heartbreak transcends the page in a beautiful novel of love and regret between painter and muse." --Shelf Awareness

"The strength of Avery's novel lies in her depiction of a driven and accomplished artist and an impressionable waif who finds that her beauty no longer belongs to her." --Publishers Weekly

"Those eyes!  Those lips!  That hair!  Tamara de Lempicka's iconic Jazz Age paintings that immortalize Rafaela Fano in her nude glory (especially The Dream and La Belle Rafaela) now see glittering, luminescent life in Avery's novel, a riveting lesbian love story of heart-stopping passion, rapture, and stunning duplicity...Avery places lovers Tamara and Rafaela within a richly portrayed circle of culture touchstones...Against that brightly pigmented background, this artist-model lovers' tale is...subtle and seductive...Avery's breathtaking shimmer of first love and its aftermath will turn heads." --Booklist, starred review

De Lempicka's painting referenced above, The Dream (1927), was adapted into the cover for Avery's THE LAST NUDE.  View some of de Lempicka's other iconic images, La Belle Rafaela and Auto-Portrait, below:

La Belle Rafaela (1927)

Auto-Portrait (Tamara in the Green Bugatti) (1925)

Riverhead, January 2012

Monday, January 9, 2012

Ten books on year-end "Top Ten" and "Best Of" lists!

The end of the year marks the moment when book reviewers closely scrutinize all the books they've reviewed in a year's span, seeking out those titles that rise to the top, that can be lauded "The Best."  We've been excitedly gathering the reviewers' notifications as they've come in over the past several weeks.  Now that 2011 is officially over, we are proud to announce that ten of our books have been honored among 2011's "Top Ten" and "Best Of" lists! 

IF JACK'S IN LOVE by Stephen Wetta

According to The Wall Street Journal, today is "a new Golden Age of crime fiction," a Golden Age which encompasses everything from detective novels to more literary crime novels.  Among the top ten 2011 titles the newspaper highlighted as perfect evidence of such an age is Stephen Wetta's debut novel.  The Wall Street Journal called IF JACK'S IN LOVE "funny and suspenseful, poignant and joyous--a one-of-a-kind work worthy of any Golden Age."  Link here.

IF JACK'S IN LOVE was also featured on About.com in their "Top 10 Books of 2011" list.  About.com called IF JACK'S IN LOVE "a debut novel not to miss."  Link here.  The website praised the book glowingly: "IF JACK'S IN LOVE has that spark of a writer who fully invests himself and writes with a startlingly bittersweet humor, infusing his first novel with a tinge of something special...Wetta is an author to watch."

IF JACK'S IN LOVE published in September 2011 by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam.


A DOUBLE LIFE by Lisa Catherine Harper

The National Book Critics Circle named A DOUBLE LIFE their #4 choice for the year's "Best of the Small Presses"!  The NBCC lauded Harper's memoir as "incredibly rich and enlightening...a clear example of the successful merging of memoir and scientific study."  They added, "[Harper] remains centered...with frequent moments of self-awareness and grace."  Link here.

The memoir came out in March 2011 from University of Nebraska Press.

Lisa Catherine Harper has appeared on another "Best Of" list as well.  Her essay "Poems from My Ex" was named the #5 most read article on PoetryFoundation.org.  Link here.


THE LAST NUDE by Ellis Avery

This novel was only released yesterday, but it made Library Journal's 2011 list of top 25 books to look forward to in 2012.  In the Library Journal starred review, the novel was called "an evocative, heart-cutting work" and "absorbing, affecting, and agitating...highly recommended."  Link here.  THE LAST NUDE was also named a January 2012 Book Pick from Library Journal

Riverhead published THE LAST NUDE in January 2012.


BEFORE VERSAILLES by Karleen Koen

Library Journal's "Best Of's" don't end with THE LAST NUDE!  The journal also released a list of "Best Books of 2011 in Historical Fiction," on which BEFORE VERSAILLES was featured.  "Lush prose illuminates one of the most powerful and glittering courts in European history," Library Journal wrote in a rave review.  Link here.

Additionally, The Houston Chronicle's book review blog, Bookish, named a list of top 2011 Texas book picks.  Prominent among them was Texan author Karleen Koen's BEFORE VERSAILLES.  Link here.

BEFORE VERSAILLES was released in June 2011 by Crown.


HEARTSTONE by C.J. Sansom

Marilyn Stasio, columnist for The New York Times Book Review, created a list of "Notable Crime Books for 2011."  Featured among these was British author C.J. Sansom's HEARTSTONE.  Link here.  In an earlier review, The New York Times Book Review said "HEARTSTONE may be the best novel in [Sansom's] richly entertaining and reassuringly scholarly series...History never seemed so real."

HEARSTONE appeared in January 2011 from Viking.


BECOMING FAULKNER by Philip Weinstein

This book was actually released in hardcover at the end of 2009 and will appear in paperback in 2012, but it was a big book under consideration in 2011 for the C. Hugh Holman Award.  And win the award it did!  The C. Hugh Holman Award is given by the Society for Southern Literature for the best and most significant book of Southern Literary Studies for the year.  More information about the award can be found here.

BECOMING FAULKNER will soon arrive in paperback, in April 2012, from Oxford University Press.


THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES by Jean M. Auel

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES hit three top ten bestseller lists of the year!  It was #6 in hardcover fiction for the ABA's "Indie Bestsellers List of 2011," and it was #9 in fiction for the UK's The Sunday Times.  Also in the UK, The Guardian newspaper printed the top 2011 books listed on the Nielsen UK sales charts.  Here, THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES appeared at #7 in hardcover fiction.

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES, the sixth book in Jean M. Auel's bestselling Earth's Children® series, came out in March 2011 from Crown.


THE COFFINS OF LITTLE HOPE by Timothy Schaffert

Rachel Manwill at BookRiot.com named five "Best Books of 2011," and ranking high on her list was THE COFFINS OF LITTLE HOPE.  She lauded the book as having "so many striking elements and...language...so evocative, that [COFFINS] manages to be the rare book where both the forest AND the trees are perfect."  Link here.

This book has received outrageously phenomenal reviews over the course of the year.  The New York Times called "each of Schaffert's books...a quirky little gem," People praised COFFINS (in no less than a four stars review) as "memorably narrated" and "a witty...profound story," and The Washington Post deemed it "alluringly strange to the very last page."

THE COFFINS OF LITTLE HOPE was released in April 2011 by Unbridled Press.


A SEA IN FLAMES by Carl Safina

A SEA IN FLAMES was named by the Project on Government Oversight as one of "Ten Books That Matter" for 2011.  According to their website, the Project on Government Oversight is "a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms."  Link here.  Elsewhere, A SEA IN FLAMES has been praised as "an illuminating, monitory study" (Kirkus), full of "factual elegance" (The Washington Post), and "a revealing, thoughtful history...an insightful work" (The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice).

Crown published A SEA IN FLAMES in April 2011. 


THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT by Carl Safina

Another book by Carl Safina received acclaim in "Best Of" lists this past year: this time THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT in Newsday's "Best Books of 2011" list.  In a separate review, Newsday said the following about the nonfiction work: "Before Carl Safina, environmentalists could often be heard wondering where the next Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, or Henry Beston might be hiding...[Safina writes] pure sensuous detail, seeing the natural world from a variety of angles."  Link here.

After reviewing this book, the New York Post called Safina "a Thoreau for the 21st century"; The New York Times featured THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT on a full page feature, named it Editors' Choice, and remarked that "Safina's book soars"; and Huffington Post praised it as "striking," a book "about what it means to be human in a world where the rhythms of life have been thrown askew, indeed, burst asunder."

THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT appeared in hardcover in January 2011 from Henry Holt, and it arrived in paperback this month from Picador.