Frankfurt Book Fair Briefcase 2019 Rights Wednesday, 16th October 2019 Agents announce their top titles for the Frankfurt Book Fair (16-20 October) Aitken Alexander Girl, Woman, Other is Bernardine Evaristo's Booker-shortlisted verse novel, about an interconnected group of Black British women (agent Emma Patterson; Hamish Hamilton UK; Grove US; Eksmo Russia). Sisters is the new novel by Daisy Johnson (left), the youngest author to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize: a "taut, powerful and deeply moving" account of sibling love (agent Chris Wellbelove; Cape UK; Riverhead US; Shanghai Literature and Art China; Stock France; BTB Germany; Koppernik Netherlands; Swiat Ksiazki Poland). In Imperfect: The Power of Good Enough in the Age of Perfectionism, behavioural psychologist Tom Curran distils his research on perfectionism to show why being "just good enough" is the key to happiness, health and success (agent Chris Wellbelove; Scribner US; under offer UK). Meet Dean and his rescue kitten Nala on an adventurous and inspiring journey around the globe, in Nala's World by Dean Nicholson and Garry Jenkins (agent Lesley Thorne; Hodder UK; Grand Central US; WSOY Finland; Nona Sweden; Luebbe Germany; Sperling Italy; Meulenhoff Netherlands; Porto Portugal). Social scientist Des Fitzgerald explores the future of urban spaces in Metropolis Now (agent Chris Wellbelove; Faber UK; Basic Books US). Richard Cohen's The History Makers is an epic exploration of who gets to write the history books, and of how the lives and biases of certain storytellers continue to influence our ideas (agent the Robbins Office; Random House US; Weidenfeld UK). Ampersand Agency Eleanor Porter's debut, provisionally entitled The Ripped Earth, is the lyrical and unsparing story – based on a real event - of a young girl scapegoated for a catastrophe that divided her Elizabethan community (agent Peter Buckman; Boldwood world English). Tendai Huchu is a Zimbabwean who has lived in Edinburgh for most of his adult life and whose The Library of the Dead is a fantasy featuring a Ghosttalker who moves between the worlds of the dead and the living (agent Jamie Cowen; Tor UK; Tor NA). The secretive and mysterious world of North Korea is uncovered in Two Years in North Korea by Lindsey Miller, who enjoyed diplomatic immunity, and hence freedom of movement, when her diplomat husband was stationed in Pyongyang from 2017 to 2019 (agent Anne-Marie Doulton; September Publishing world English). The agency has sold 21 of HRF Keating's crime novels starring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay Police to Severn House (Canongate). Mark Hill's The Bad Place is the first in a new crime series set on the coast of Essex, and a Times crime book of the month (agent Jamie Cowen; Head of Zeus world English). In Buried in Burma, historian Tracy Spaight and archaeologist Andy Brockman investigate the story that a number of brand-new Spitfires were buried in Burma at the end of the Second World War (agent Peter Buckman; History Press world). Darley Anderson www.bookbrunch.co.uk Design by: BDS Digital © BookBrunch Ltd. In Rage of Maidens by debut author Sinéad Desmond (right) the man Alexa loves has done something terrible to her; she imagines him dying - and he dies (agent Camilla Bolton). When her mother dies, Jude must return to her unhappy childhood home to find something among the clutter, in A Last Breath by debut author RS Maxwell (agent Tanera Simons). Debut author Vicky Bradley's psychological thriller Before I Say I Do follows Julia, who wants to leave her past behind by marrying Mark - but the groom is missing (agent Camilla Bolton; Simon & Schuster UK). Veronica, heroine of Away with the Penguins by Hazel Prior, is not done with her life yet, because she has some penguins to save (agent Darley Anderson; Transworld UK; Berkley NA; options in six languages). Photo by Lili Forberg Blake Friedmann The Irish Princess by Elizabeth Chadwick is a sumptuous journey of ambition and desire, love and loss (agent Isobel Dixon; Sphere UK; Recorded Books US Audio; Euromedia Czech Republic; Blanvalet Germany; Proszynski Poland). In One Eye Open by Paul Finch, DI Lynda Hagen's investigation into a suspicious car crash becomes something entirely more dangerous when she discovers that the "Red Book" - the most vital asset of a criminal empire - has been stolen (agent Tom Witcomb; Orion world English). Peter James follows his ghost story The House on Cold Hill with The Secret of Cold Hill (agent Isobel Dixon; Pan Macmillan UK & Canada; Canelo US). South African writer Deon Meyer's (left) new thriller is The Last Hunt, in which Captain Benny Griessel's investigation into the death of an ex-cop becomes entangled with a hitman's plot to assassinate a corrupt president (agent Isobel Dixon; rights sold include Human & Rousseau Afrikaans; Hodder UK; Grove Atlantic NA). Sheila O'Flanagan's new novel is The Women Who Ran Away, about two women who form an unlikely friendship as they face up to shocking truths about the men they have loved (agent Isobel Dixon; Headline UK). Bobby March Will Live Forever is Alan Parks' new novel starring Harry McCoy, here investigating the death of a rock star and a missing girl in 1970s Glasgow (agent Tom Witcomb; Canongate world English; Bompiani Italy). Felicity Bryan Novelist Adam Brookes' first non-fiction title is Fragile Cargo, about the evacuation of China's Forbidden City art collection during World War Two (agent Catherine Clarke; Chatto UK; Atria US). Tim Birkhead presents an account of our relationship with birds from the era of cave paintings to thepresent day in Connections: Our Relationship with Birds (agent Felicity Bryan; Viking world English). How To Build a Human: The Art of Parenting Scientifically, by scientist and author of Swearing Is Good for You Emma Byrne (right), is a "witty but compassionate guide" to parenthood (agent Carrie Plitt; Profile world English; China Simplified Beijing Green Beans Book Co). The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World is an "important and enthralling" exploration of the Freemasons by John Dickie, author and professor of Italian studies (agent Catherine Clarke; Hodder UK; Public Affairs NA; S Fischer Germany; Editori Laterza Italy; Uitgeverij Ambo- Anthos Netherlands). In The Octopus by Tess Little, Elspeth attends the 50th birthday party of her estranged ex-husband, a famous and notoriously difficult film director; the morning after, he is dead (agent Carrie Plitt; Hodder UK). Conversations on Love by journalist Natasha Lunn is an exploration of how we find, sustain and lose love through revealing conversations and personal essays (agent Carrie Plitt; under offer UK). www.bookbrunch.co.uk Design by: BDS Digital © BookBrunch Ltd. Photo by Vanity Studios Georgina Capel Daniel Susskind explores how we might thrive in a world where technology has made many jobs redundant in A World Without Work: Technology, Automation and How We Should Respond (agent Georgina Capel; Allen Lane UK; Holt US; Manole Brazil; Bompiani Italy; Flammarion France; Mirae N Co, Korea; Commonwealth Taiwan). Daniel Chandler's Free and Equal brings the ideas of John Rawls to a popular audience (agent Georgina Capel; Allen Lane UK). Roger Moorhouse's First to Fight: The Polish War 1939 is billed as the first history of the Polish war for almost half a century(agent Georgina Capel; Bodley Head UK; Basic Books US; Znak Poland). Greg Woolf's The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History spans a period from the end of the Bronze Age to the beginning of the Middle Ages (agent Georgina Capel; OUP UK; OUP US; Ginkgo China; Einaudi Italy). Chibundu Onuzo's (left) novel Union is a story of Britain's relationship with her African guests in the 20th century - a story of fathers and daughters and of one woman's quest to find her identity (agent Georgina Capel; Virago UK; Narrative Landscape Press West Africa). C&W One Night Only is a first novel by Julietta Henderson, about 12-year-old would-be comedian Norman, who, following his best friend Jax's death, wants to look after his mum, find the father he's never met, and honour Jax's memory by performing at the Edinburgh fringe (agent Sue Armstrong; Transworld UK; Droemer Germany; De Fontein Netherlands). Dangerous, Defective & Delirious by Dr Elinor Cleghorn is a "ground- breaking" examination of the medical industry and its historical misdiagnoses of women (agent Emma Finn; Weidenfeld UK). In Line of Sight, evolutionary biologist Andrew Parker tells the epic story of vision, from the first primitive light sensors hundreds of millions of years ago, to AI and the quest to replicate the human visual system in robotics today (agent Richard Pike; Thomas Rap Netherland; Debate/PRH Spain). A Knife To Cut Through Water is a debut novel by Stinging Fly contributor and co-editor of literary journal Banshee Eimear Ryan, about Beth Crowe, a prospective Olympic swimmer newly enrolled at college, forced to come to terms with her own life and desires after the death of her grandmother (agent Lucy Luck). Financial Times journalist Simon Mundy will spend 18 months travelling the globe meeting everyone from farmers planting a "green wall" across the Sahara, to Japanese engineers building ships powered by wind turbines and solar panels, to the first climate refugees, for Race for Tomorrow (agent Sophie Lambert). In The Octopus Man by Jasper Gibson, Tom, once an outstanding student, is lost in the dispassionate machinery of the mental health system, and accompanied at all times by Malamock, the Octopus God of his own creation, part-comforter, part-autarch, part-malevolent-guide (agent Clare Conville; UK White Rabbit/Orion). Curtis Brown Two women are on a desolate road that slices through the New Mexican desert, bound together by a mission they can't afford to fail, in Jessica Barry's (right) new thriller Don't Turn Around (agent Felicity Blunt; Harvill Secker UK; Harper US).