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the bukowski agency HOT TITLES Frankfurt 2012

For excerpts and further information, please visit www.thebukowskiagency.com Annabel Lyon The Sweet Girl A bold and captivating new novel of women’s lives in ancient Greece, from the celebrated author of the The Golden Mean Finished books now available Pythias is Aristotle’s daughter, with eyes his exact shade of unlovely, intelligent grey. Little Pytho is smart, able to best his students in debate and match wits with a roomful of Athenian philosophers. When Aristotle dies, his orphaned daughter, only sixteen, finds out that the world is a place of superstition, not logic, and that a girl can be played with by gods and goddesses, as much as by grown men and women. photo by: Phillip Chin

Praise for The Golden Mean RIGHTS SOLD US: Knopf, August 2013 “This quietly ambitious and beautifully achieved novel is one of the most convincing historical novels I have ever read. Lyon makes her UK: Atlantic, January 2013 reader avid for every detail of this strange world. She makes her : , September characters entirely solid and real, while respecting their otherness, 2012 the distance between us.” Turkey: Pegasus Yayinlari –HILARY MANTEL France: Editions de La Table Ronde French Canada: Alto Alan Bradley Speaking from Among the Bones • The fifth installment of the award-winning Flavia de Luce mystery series • Television rights sold to Sam Mendes • Rights to Volume One sold in 37 territories Final manuscript now available New York Times bestselling author Alan Bradley delivers another captivating tale of Bishop’s Lacey’s finest detective: the chemically photo by: Jeff Bassett fixated and terminally inquisitive 11-year-old Flavia de Luce. The town is preparing for the disinterment of local hero St. Tancred RIGHTS SOLD on the 500th anniversary of his death, but when Flavia attends the unearthing, she discovers an unusually recent corpse in the tomb. US: Delacorte, February 2013 UK: Orion, February 2013 Canada: Doubleday, February 2013 Praise for the Flavia de Luce series : “Impressive as a sleuth and enchanting as a mad scientist, Flavia N. American English Audio: Random is most endearing as a little girl who has learned how to amuse House herself in a big lonely house.” Brazil: Saraiva –THE NEW YORK TIMES Italy: Sellerio Anthony De Sa Kicking the Sky (formerly Carnival of Desire) By the author shortlisted for the 2008 Giller Prize for Barnacle Love Final manuscript now available Kicking the Sky is set in 1977, the year a shoeshine boy, Emanuel Jacques, was brutally raped and murdered in Toronto. In the aftermath of the crime, Antonio Rebelo, the twelve-year-old narrator of this story, explores with his friends his Portuguese neighbourhood’s dark garages and labyrinthine back alleys, where they develop a curious relationship with a modern-day Fagin, a bohemian living in a rented garage, a fledgling master over an amoral world of young hustlers where theft, drugs, and sex are seen as “just work, you know? It’s just about money.” Over the course of a year, through the unravelling courtroom drama and media stories about the shoeshine-boy murder, Antonio becomes aware of the dashed hopes of immigrants, of the power of faith and the role of the church, and of the terrifying confluence of power photo by: George Pimentel and desire that these elements fostered in his community. Kicking the Sky is a novel of a young man’s glimpse into a RIGHTS SOLD dark and cruel world. Antonio learns about bravery and cowardice, US: Algonquin, Spring 2014 life and death, and the heart’s capacity for love and for unremitting Canada: Doubleday, August 2013 hatred. By the novel’s end, he faces endless possibilities that he must either refuse or embrace.

Praise for Anthony De Sa’s first book, Barnacle Love “In Barnacle Love, a set of interlinked stories, Anthony De Sa moves with skill and ingenuity between folk tale, myth and narratives of contemporary displacement. The tone is spare and elegiac; the stories are filled with carefully chosen details and sharply drawn characters. They have immense emotional and truthful power.” –Colm Tóibín “Although the book invites psychological analysis, its originality is anthropological, presented in descriptions of a Portuguese fishing community whose commonplace customs are retained even in a North American city.” –New York Times “De Sa’s brooding debut illumines displacement and despair with glinting literary highlights.” –Kirkus Reviews “The two parts of this intelligent yet passionate novel merge seamlessly into a double- layered, twice as effective, doubly meaningful story… A beautiful musical piece stating and repeating its profoundly moving melody.” –Booklist, starred review Claire Cameron Algonquin In a nail-biter of psychological suspense told by a six-year-old in a voice reminiscent of Room, two small children are left alone on a remote island when their parents are attacked by a bear. Final manuscript now available Algonquin Park consists of nearly three thousand square miles of wilderness situated 250 miles northeast of Toronto. It is a popular destination for campers, hikers, and canoeists.

Claire Cameron has imagined what might happen if a young family were confronted there by a bear. Algonquin grabs you by the throat and will not let you go. Written by an author who has much experience of both wilderness survival and motherhood, it is a brilliant examination of how children help each other and themselves in such circumstances — a sort of rebuttal to Lord of the Flies. photo by: Lisa Sakulensky PRAISE FOR CLAIRE CAMERON’S FIRST NOVEL, THE LINE PAINTER RIGHTS SOLD “It takes a certain amount of courage to tread such well-covered US: Reagan Arthur Books/Little, ground; it takes significant talent to make such a familiar Brown, January 2014 conceit feel fresh and original, to lift it beyond the constraints Canada: Doubleday, January 2014 of the cliché. In her debut novel The Line Painter…Toronto UK: , January 2014 writer Claire Cameron demonstrates that she has both, in abundance. …The opening pages of The Line Painter are a masterful balancing act of suspense and relief, a dance between expectation and surprise that steadily increases the tension to an almost unbearable point. Writing in a tight, parsed, minimalist tone, Cameron acutely conveys the tension inherent in the situation and, more significantly, builds on readerly expectations with this motif. It’s a bravura performance.” –THE GLOBE AND MAIL “An old B-movie premise — Car Breaks Down in the Middle of Nowhere — is given a fresh, distinctly Canadian twist in this wicked little first novel. The Line Painter fires along on its lean language and propulsive suspense, the kind of story you could swallow whole once you’re past the first page. I certainly did.” –ANDREW PYPER “The Line Painter is a straightforward look at denial and the ways in which we seek forgiveness. Suspenseful, evocative, and well-paced, this road trip story of guilt and love offers glimpses into tragically human characters who inhabit the margins of redemption. There are no easy endings for Carrie or Frank as they discover, together, that some actions are unforgivable.” –IBI KASLIK Cecil Foster Independence A celebrated Barbadian author’s first novel in 10 years Final manuscript now available Independence is the touching story of the coming of age of a country and two teenagers in it, at the time of Barbados’ independence from Britain in 1966. Fourteen-year-old Christopher Lucas and Stephanie King have been neighbours and best friends since they were born a few months apart. They have been raised by their impoverished grandmothers after their mothers went “over ’n’ away” to the USA and Canada to find work when the children were toddlers; no one has heard from the mothers since. The grandmothers are growing more and more desperate about their ability to support their charges. When the novel opens, there is a sudden and unexplained rift between the children following the return from Canada of a benefactor named Mr. Lashley, who lavishes gifts on Stephanie.

Through a series of triumphs and catastrophes, Christopher and photo by: Lisa Sakulensky Stephanie determine their places in the world and take control of their lives. Rich with the details of Bajan culture, from food preparation to political and financial affairs, from sexuality to RIGHTS SOLD spirituality, Independence is a fascinating window onto a little- Canada: HarperCollins known world, and a moving portrait of a journey to adulthood and the women who guide it.

Praise for the work of Cecil Foster “He shows the brave characters of West Indian women as no one else has.” –E. Annie Proulx “A moving story, rich in detail, told with great sensitivity and affection.” –New York Newsday “One of those rare books that do indeed celebrate indomitable characters and the resilience of the human spirit… A remarkable debut.” –Kirkus Reviews “A poignant portrayal of a Jamaican woman’s struggle to build a new life.” –Publishers Weekly “Cecil Foster is a wise man with a flair for storytelling and writing that enters the heart. Slammin’ Tar, Foster’s sixth book, is a moving chronicle about the lives of working men. That it preserves the dignity of labour while exposing the sorrow of men is a testament to Foster’s deep respect for his characters…. In Slammin’ Tar, Foster has broken the familiar and made something universal.” –QUILL AND QUIRE starred review AGA MAKSIMOWSKA Giant A humorous and moving debut novel about a young girl whose over-sized body reflects the struggles she faces over immigration and identity Finished books now available Gosia is barely a teenager, but she has the body of a fully-developed woman. In a poignant coming-of-age story, Maksimowska addresses all the painful adjustments of immigration from the perspective of a complex, sympathetic Polish family newly released from the confines of Communism into the dilemmas of democracy. photo by: Jordan Gross Praise for AGA MAKSIMOWSKA “Aga Maksimowska has an ability to show vulnerability and RIGHTS SOLD tenderness without the slightest bit of sentimentality. She has a shrewd Canada: Pedlar Press and sardonic sense of humour and an impeccable sense of timing that keep her writing, even in the most painful moments, buoyant, afloat.” –CAMILLA GIBB “Maksimowska offers a engaging young narrator whose viewpoint is edged with ironies…. Coming of age in this book becomes a gauntlet of culture clash, dovetailed smartly with all the usual absurdities of growing up.” –THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Anita Rau Badami Tell It to the Trees A suspenseful mystery and a heart-rending story of family life in an isolated Indian household in a small North American town Finished books now available A dead body is found frozen in the backyard of the Dharma family’s house. It’s the body of their tenant, Anu Krishnan. Why had she, a stranger to the mountains, been foolish enough to go out into the blizzard? From this gripping opening, Anita Rau Badami threads a story of love and need, and of chilling secrets never told aloud. photo by: Richard-Max Tremblay

Praise for ANITA BADAMI’S TELL IT TO THE TREES RIGHTS SOLD “Badami is deft at building and particularizing those characters Canada: Knopf, fall 2011 fortunate enough to have a voice in her tale.” Italy: Edizioni Piemme –THE GLOBE AND MAIL Frances Greenslade Shelter • A 2012 Waterstones 11 Debut Novel • Shortlisted for the B.C. Book Prize for Fiction • A May Indie Next Pick Finished books now available When a devoted mother disappears, her daughters set out to discover who she really was, besides being a mom.

PRAISE FOR FRANCES GREENSLADE “The longing for a lost mother has rarely been expressed so soulfully. photo by: Stuart Bish The yearning of these two vulnerable young sisters for their mother, who has disappeared, is palpable. I was entirely absorbed in their RIGHTS SOLD precarious situation and their desire to find her, yet aware that US: , May 2012 their mother’s gift was the resourcefulness they needed to survive. Canada: Knopf, September 2011 Greenslade is a fresh new voice that you are sure to hear again.” UK: Virago, February 2012 –Bobbie Ann Mason Holland: Orlando, Fall 2012 Germany: Mare Verlag, July 2012 German : Suhrkamp Stephen Miller The Messenger A novel of psychological suspense with a terrifying but sympathetic female lead Finished books now available In the not too distant future, a young woman boards a plane in Berlin for America on a horrendous mission. There a scientist who always knew she was coming is galvanized into action to stop her in her tracks. In the end, she makes it very easy for him.

Praise for Stephen Miller’s The Messenger “A chilling, heart-thumping, masterfully-written thriller. Stephen photo by: Kevin Frederick Clark Miller has created a complex anti-heroine in the character of Daria Vermiglio, a portrait of a bio-terrorist so well rendered RIGHTS SOLD that we can relate to her, understand her, and identify with her North America: Delacorte, August 2012 journey from complete conviction to regret for her actions once Israel: Kinneret she meets some of her victims: the American poor.” : Forlaget Punktum –CARMEN AGUIRRE Spanish language: Editorial Viceversa “A real snake-charmer of a tale, The Messenger doesn’t unfold, Serbia: Beoknjiga it uncoils. You can only stare, appalled and fascinated, unable to Mainland China: Yilin Press avert your eyes. A riveting read, from beginning to end. This is Audio: Recorded Books Cormack McCarthy territory. It goes way beyond its genre.” –JOHN MACLACHLAN GRAY THE BUKOWSKI AGENCY LTD. Denise Bukowski, Principal Agent 14 Prince Arthur Avenue, Suite 202, Toronto, Ontario M5R 1A9 Tel: (416) 928-6728 Fax: (416) 963-9978 www.thebukowskiagency.com Production: PageWave Graphics Inc.