Berkley Lands Danica Nava’s Indigenous Take on Cowboy Romance in a Busy Week of Rights Deals
Publishers announced a broad slate of acquisitions this week, led by Berkley’s buy of Danica Nava’s Bodice Ripper, an Indigenous reworking of western historical romance. The list also includes new entries from Patricia Cornwell, David Vann, Annalee Newitz, and others across fiction, memoir, and practical nonfiction.
Berkley has picked up Danica Nava’s Bodice Ripper, a novel the publisher is framing as a subversive reimagining of the cowboy romance, in one of the week’s most notable rights deals. The book, acquired for world rights by Angela Kim from Laura Bradford at Bradford Literary Agency, centers on a Native scholar who is transported into the western historical romance novel she most despises and must live through the heroine’s story in order to rewrite the West, find a happy ending, and get home.
Romance, rewritten
The project places Nava, an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, inside one of publishing’s most familiar commercial forms while explicitly challenging its inherited assumptions. Western romance has long been a staple of popular fiction, but Bodice Ripper aims to shift both perspective and power by centering an Indigenous protagonist inside the genre’s most recognizable fantasy of the frontier. Berkley has set publication for summer 2027.
The deal arrives as publishers continue to invest in high-concept fiction that revisits genre traditions through new cultural lenses. In this case, the premise draws its energy from a collision between romance convention and literary critique: the heroine is not just falling into a historical setting, but being forced to confront the fiction itself. That combination could help the book reach romance readers looking for a fresh premise as well as readers interested in stories that interrogate how the West has been imagined.
Another major fiction acquisition came from Pushkin, where Adam Freudenheim bought world English rights to From Before Memory by David Vann from Kimberly Witherspoon and David Forrer at InkWell Management. Vann’s first novel in eight years is set in a near-future America after the collapse of the national government, with community members honored in “grisly funeral rites,” according to the publisher. The story follows a 99-year-old matriarch, Maxine, who sparks a violent rebellion. Publication is scheduled for February 2027.
That project extends Vann’s long-running interest in bleak landscapes, moral extremity, and family conflict, but moves those concerns into a speculative national breakdown. For Pushkin, the novel represents a high-profile return from an author whose work has been absent from the novel format for nearly a decade. Its February 2027 slot suggests the publisher sees it as a major literary fiction event.
Series continuations and category bets
In another significant series move, Scribner acquired U.S. rights to Patricia Cornwell’s next two Kay Scarpetta novels from Esther Newberg at CAA. The deal marks the series’ return to Simon & Schuster after several years with Hachette’s Grand Central. The first title, Rapid and Fatal, sends Scarpetta into the investigation of the murders of a billionaire couple, founders of an elite security firm, who are found dead in their mansion, apparently stung by yellow jackets. Release is planned for January 2027.
The Scarpetta books remain a dependable fixture in crime publishing, and the move back to Simon & Schuster underscores the continuing commercial value of long-running franchise fiction. For readers, the new contract signals that one of mystery publishing’s most durable series is entering another phase with a new house.
Tordotcom also made a sequel acquisition, taking world English and German rights to Annalee Newitz’s Noodle Union from Laurie Fox at Linda Chester Literary Agency. The novel follows Automatic Noodle, the 2025 cozy science fiction novella, and returns to a near future where a labor movement is building inside the pneumatic delivery tubes around a robot-run noodle restaurant. Publication is scheduled for fall 2027.
Newitz’s book continues the unusual blend of workplace politics, robotics, and comfort-food futurism that made the earlier novella stand out. The sequel suggests Tordotcom is wagering on readers’ appetite for science fiction that pairs social questions with an inviting, character-centered tone.
Fantasy, memoir, and practical nonfiction
On the fantasy side, Saga acquired North American rights in a two-book deal for Kirsten Garrison’s debut The Godbound King from Jane Chun at Transatlantic Literary Agency. The opening volume in a duology is set in a world of malevolent gods and follows a priestess who disobeys her religious order and sets out with a mysterious usurper king whose divine favor helps drive his expansion into the lands of untamed gods. Publication is slated for fall 2027.
Among nonfiction deals, Gallery took world rights to former Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth, covering his years at the company and his dismissal in 2022. Natasha Simons acquired the book from Ian Kleinert at Paradigm Talent Agency, and publication is planned for September.
Dey Street also picked up Jenny McCarthy’s I’m Too Hot for This $#!+: The Naked Truth About Menopause from Margaret Riley King at WME, with Carrie Thornton acquiring U.S., Canadian, and open market rights for a February 2027 release. Libby Burton will edit the book, which appears positioned as a candid personal work on a stage of life often discussed in more clinical terms.
Further along the nonfiction spectrum, Ballantine acquired world rights to Sportsgevity by Neeru Jayanthi, director of sports medicine research at Emory University, with a summer 2028 release planned. The book is intended as a guide to keeping young athletes healthy and supporting a lifetime in sports. Rodale, meanwhile, won world rights at auction to Handle with Care by textile artist and content creator Helena “Yoonie” Kim, a DIY guide to repairing secondhand pieces that also incorporates personal narrative and Kim’s philosophy of restoration. Its publication is set for spring 2028.
Taken together, the week’s deals show publishers still spreading bets across genre fiction, celebrity nonfiction, professional guidance, and books that reframe familiar forms. But among them, Nava’s Bodice Ripper stands out as a sign of how publishers are increasingly inviting writers to revisit old genre landscapes and remake them from the inside.