2 Seas Agency 2014 Bologna Hot List

HOT LIST BOLOGNA BOOK FAIR 2014

Marleen Seegers & Derek Dodds Assisted by Brita Lundberg

[email protected] www.2seasagency.com | www.catalog.2seasagency.com

www.facebook.com/2seasagency | www.twitter.com/2seasagency

1129 Maricopa Highway, Suite 175 Ojai, California 93023

USA

Agency Profile 3

JUVENILE & YA FICTION REPRESENTED WORLDWIDE

Represented on behalf of Hachette Romans (Paris, France)

Alphen, Pauline: The Harem Slave and the Elephant 4

Blanvillain, Luc: Alice’s Heart 4

Cassabois, Jacques: The Angry Hedgehogs 5

Feret-‐Fleury, Christine: Chasing Sleeping Beauty 5

Kalengula, Catherine: Rock, Paper, Scissors 6

Marcastel, Jean-‐Luc: A World for Clara 6

Puard, Bertrand: The Deleted 7

Vermalle, Caroline: Sixtine 7

JUVENILE & YA FICTION REPRESENTED IN SELECTED TERRITORIES

Represented on behalf of The Rights Factory (Toronto, Canada)

Hogarth, Ainslie: The Lonely 8

Kruger, Kat: The Magdeburg Trilogy 8

Misri, Angela: The Jewel of the Thames 9

Narsimhan, Mahtab: The Tiffin 9

Nicholas, Beck: Lifer 10

Pohl-‐Weary, Emily: Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl 10

Sevigny, Alisha: Kissing Frogs 11

Represented on behalf of Villa-‐Boas & Moss Agency (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Indigo: The Book of Enchanted Letters 11

Leitao, Miriam: The Risky Life of Small Birds 12

Moreira, Eduardo: The Mountain Whisperer 12

Agency Profile

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About 2 Seas Agency 2 Seas Agency represents foreign rights on behalf of an exciting variety of publishers, agents and authors coming from all corners of the globe. Based in Ojai, California, it was founded in June 2011 by Marleen Seegers and Derek Dodds, two passionate, multilingual publishing professionals with over 20 years of combined experience on both sides of the Atlantic as well as in Asia. We currently work with approximately 30 clients, representing more than 500 fiction and non-‐fiction adult, YA and juvenile titles. We sell directly to the markets in France, Holland, the Nordic countries, and to English language markets. In other territories, we have developed a solid network of co-‐agents (see p. 6). Besides the two most important international book fairs, held in Frankfurt and London, we attend local book fairs such as, in 2014, the Book Expo America in New York and the Gothenburg Book Fair in Sweden. Previous book fair participations include the Beijing International Book Fair, the Bienal do Livro in Rio de Janeiro, and the Moscow Book Fair. Additionally, we regularly meet with European publishers in their hometown, such as Paris and Amsterdam. Our website, www.2seasagency.com, includes our entire online catalog, more detailed biographical information about Marleen and Derek, articles written by us and by international guest contributors about current trends and events in publishing, links to our social media sites and much more. Be sure to take a look! Testimonials "Marleen is a wonderful foreign agent. She is kind, punctual, communicative, hard working and very good at what she does. I am lucky to work with her!" ~ Dr. Paulette Kouffman Sherman, Psychologist, Relationship Coach and Author, USA "Once again, your work amazes me. Everything about it. The quality of your website, your submissions, your way of communicating, the angles with which you approach literature as well as your commercial sense. Finally, a breath of fresh air among our old methods!" ~ Zéline Guéna, Literary Scout, France "Congratulations for all the new titles you are taking on, I really admire the way you are building up your business. You really are an inspiration!" ~ Evangelia Avloniti, Owner, Ersilia Literary Agency, Greece "We adore your fresh and energetic way to sell rights!" ~ Iina Tikanoja, Foreign Fiction Editor, Gummerus Publishers, Finland

2 Seas Agency – Bologna Book Fair 2014

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JUVENILE & YA FICTION REPRESENTED WORLDWIDE Represented on behalf of Hachette Romans (Paris, France): THE HAREM SLAVE AND THE ELEPHANT – Pauline Alphen YA Fiction | French | Hachette Romans | 192 pp. | March 2014 2 Seas Represents: World translation rights (excl. Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese). Detailed English and Spanish synopses available Leila is 7 years old. A tiny harem slave, she slides on her slippers in the winged corridors of the palace. She meets the Sultan. He falls in love. Bam! Falling in love with a tiny harem slave because of her ears, does this seem surprising to you? Leila is 15 years old. The Sultan receives a gift. The biggest, most powerful, wisest, bravest, roundest, and rarest of all gifts. Leila falls in love with the gift for the Sultan. Sounds confusing? This book will tell you impossible stories, stories that you dreamed of, stories that you've forgotten. It makes all the impossible love stories possible! Contains beautiful full-‐color illustrations by Charlotte Gastaut. 2 Seas also represents additional titles by Pauline Alphen: The Awakeners, Gabriel & Gabriel, and The Upside Down Tree. ALICE’S HEART – Luc Blanvillain Comedy | YA Fiction | French | Hachette Romans | 448 pp. | November 2013 Reminiscent of the international bestseller Ensemble c’est tout by Anna Gavalda, Alice’s Heart is a sensible and intelligent comedy written with humor and a dynamic, lively style. There are a lot of people in 17-‐year-‐old Alice’s heart. First off, there’s her mother Sylvaine (Sy), who passed away in 2010 following a ruptured aneurysm. Then there’s her father, Xavier, a talented writer who lacks inspiration since Sy’s death. In Alice’s heart, there’s also Edouard, her best friend who could fall in love with her. And there’s also Hubert, the neighbor. Some people say he’s crazy, others say he’s mentally challenged. In Alice’s heart there’s Leopold, who loves Alice. And there’s Julie too, who could be her ideal best friend. And then there’s Jonas, Julie’s boyfriend, with whom Alice immediately falls in love. There’s also Sybille, Julie’s sister, a journalist who is suffering from a tyrannical boss and who sees in Xavier her professional rescue… and perhaps more… And then there is Lea, Sybille’s three and a half-‐year-‐old daughter, who soon seems to become friends with Hubert. As Edouard says it so well, this story is a model of clarity… Indeed, since all these “inextricable” situations are linked by Luc Blanvillain’s pen. A pen full of humor, emotion and imagination, which delights and gives life to Alice’s Heart.


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THE ANGRY HEDGEHOGS – Jacques Cassabois YA Fiction | French | Hachette Romans | 368 pp. | October 2013 In a small town called Lunainville, the debates never end: for or against the use of shale gas? For or against drilling and underground explorations and mining? After huge rallies and protests against the projects, Lunainvillians seem to come around to the Mayor’s decision to go ahead with them. Do all the townspeople agree? No! Clémence and Louis, 16 year-‐old high school students, decide to continue to support the opposition. Clémence lost her mother because of pesticides sprayed over their family fields, and she will never let the energy industry or politicians decide the fate of the world. This world is hers; it belongs to her generation, and she wants everyone to know that. With Louis, she creates The Angry Hedgehogs, a group that unites fifteen young people like themselves, who want to take control and make themselves heard. But how can they succeed, so small and weak compared with the machinery used by and faced with the political games played by the industrial leaders? Who cares?! They decide to organize actions that show their power and will get them noticed: distributing leaflets, staging strikes, stopping a train (which gets them arrested), and blocking tollbooths. These initiatives get lots of press, and social networks help to spread the word to other Hedgehogs who wait for the signal to join the leaders of the group. This book tells of an epic protest combined with the intense love story between Clémence and Louis, who grow and develop their only goal: the cessation of drilling and the defense of the Earth. CHASING SLEEPING BEAUTY – Christine Feret-‐Fleury YA Thriller | French | Hachette Romans | 352 pp. | March 2014 “We do not run away from the Spindle, we go to him. “ He is called the Spindle. Behind this fairy tale name lurks an altogether more gruesome truth: the Spindle is a serial killer, a criminal who stalks his victims from birth, promising their parents that their family will be murdered on their daughter’s sixteenth birthday. For Ariane, that day looms large, so she runs away in order to protect her parents from the killer who swore to take her life. Along the way, she meets Lara, a girl who looks so much like her, she could be her sister. However, a terrible accident claims Lara’s life on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. In the heat of the moment, Ariane is mistaken for Lara. But perhaps these events offer Ariane a way out of her nightmare. Maybe assuming Lara’s identity is the key to escaping her would-‐be killer... Ever watchful, Ariane is still on the run, but the killer is much closer than she thinks... A nerve-‐wracking, fascinating story that darkly revisits the tale of the Sleeping Beauty. Rediscover this fairy tale with a thriller twist.


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ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS – Catherine Kalengula New Adult Fiction | French | Hachette Romans | 304 pp. | Fall 2013 Rock, paper, scissors, or when mere child’s play becomes a game of love. A broken elevator. Two strangers. Taking advantage of the darkness, the walls are cracking and skins are brushing. A game of seductions begins. The senses awaken. Alice lost her parents in a car accident. Living with her grandmother in Oxford, England, she shuts herself off from the world in a cocoon of solitude and suffering. Shane is a rebellious and tortured young man. Adopted by an English couple when he was little, he feels like his Korean origins and the difficulty of being different creates distance between him and his adoptive parents. A tortured artist, he consoles himself in the arms of girls who he then rejects without a care. Everything, therefore, separates Alice and Shane. They end up meeting each other anyway when the elevator, which they both happen to take at the same time, breaks down. In the shadows of the stopped elevator, their facades begin to break down, a connection is made, and a spark is felt. Can Alice calm Shane’s violence and anger? Is Shane able to remind Alice of what it means to live?

A WORLD FOR CLARA – Jean-‐Luc Marcastel YA Fiction | French | Hachette Romans | 340 pp. | Fall 2013 2027. After a nuclear disaster, ecology becomes the primary concern. Among its defenders, the Child of Gaïa, a powerful extremist sect, mingle religious speech and spirituality. Invited by her best friend Léo, Diane participates in one of their anti-‐nuclear demonstrations. But the peaceful march turns to street fight, and Diane, seriously injured, falls into a coma… Ten years later, the girl wakes up while she is being kidnapped by a commando then rescued by other men in strange armor. She finds Léo, now leader of the Templars, the militia of the Church of Gaïa. Diane soon discovers that the world changed during her sleep: the Child of Gaïa became all-‐powerful. Paris turned into the ideal ecological city and is now named New Lutécia. But above all, Diane learns that she became the icon of the Green Revolution, a living embodiment of Gaïa in the eyes of its faithful.


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THE DELETED – Bertrand Puard YA Crime Series (6 titles) | French | Hachette Romans | 300-‐400 pp. | 2012 -‐ 2013 More than 130,000 copies sold (trade and paperback combined) and the first five volumes were awarded the Juvenile Crime Award at France’s popular Cognac Crime Festival! Detailed English synopsis and English sample chapters available Four adolescents: Ilsa, Matilda, Emile and Zachary. Their parents: assassinated because they knew too much. The highest government authority wrote, “To be dealt with” next to their respective names on a top-‐secret report. Who they are: having escaped death, in the legal sense they technically no longer exist. They’ve been condemned to change their names and their identities. In a way, they’re the living dead. Their guardian angel: Nicholas Mandragore, former Director of the Forensics Institute in Paris. Mysterious, we don’t know anything else about him. These four have vowed to fight for justice in a society where money and power are all that matter. They’ll be digging for the truth on cases where the authorities have wrapped things up too hastily. So that the guilty are punished. And so that nobody else is eliminated to cover up other people’s crimes. They’re the Deleted. SIXTINE – Caroline Vermalle (trilogy) Thriller | French | Hachette Romans | 396 pp. | Fall 2013 Rights sold: Spain (book 1, Hachette-‐Bruño) English sample available -‐ Over 10,000 copies sold! When Egyptologists uncover a new secret from Nefertiti’s mummy, they are jubilant and the whole world is amazed. At the same time, a dark discovery is made at the Great Pyramid of Giza. A 22-‐year-‐old woman is found, almost dead, in a chamber completely ignored by scientists until now. At her side is her dead husband. There are no clues as to how the royal tomb has been opened since the laying of the last stone 4,000 years ago… No clues except a tiny crack, just big enough to let in a breath of air. The dead man in the pyramid is Seth Price, an American millionaire. A few weeks earlier, he had married a stunningly beautiful young woman. But the woman rescued from the Great Pyramid has nothing in common with the dream girl written about in the tabloids. This skeletal woman has grey hair and her eyes are an inhuman shade of green. A cross-‐shaped tattoo adorns her lower back, which Jessica Desroches-‐Pryce has no memory of getting. In fact, Jessica Desroches-‐Pryce doesn’t remember anything, except her first name: Sixtine.


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JUVENILE & YA FICTION REPRESENTED IN SELECTED TERRITORIES Represented on Behalf of The Rights Factory (Toronto, Canada): THE LONELY – Ainslie Hogarth YA Fiction | English (Canada) | Flux/Llewellyn | 312 pp. | September 2014 2 Seas Represents: Dutch and French rights (excl. Canada) only Easter is pinned under a giant boulder, slowly bleeding to death in The Woods behind her house. She went looking for her sister Julia after she discovered The Terrible Thing. Bored, disappointed and thoroughly dismembered, Easter has only the sinister squirrels to keep her company — and they are frightened away with increasing frequency by The Something Coming. Easter uses her final moments to unravel the mystery of Julia: why only Easter can see her. Unreliable in her narration, Easter recounts the history of her relationship with Julia, their closeness as “sisters,” and eventual drifting apart. Morbid, darkly humorous, psychologically twisted and surreal in its blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction, reality and unreality, The Lonely challenges the reader with its imaginative world and experimental structure — a Donnie Darko for the new generation. THE MAGDEBURG TRILOGY – Kat Kruger YA Fiction | English (Canada) | Fierce Ink Press | 199-‐306 pp. | Sept. 2012-‐Spring 2014 2 Seas Represents: Dutch and French rights (excl. Canada) only Rights Sold: USA (Month9 Books), Germany (cbj Verlag/Random House, 3-‐book deal). THE NIGHT HAS TEETH | THE NIGHT HAS CLAWS | THE NIGHT IS FOUND On his first day of kindergarten, Connor Lewis bit a boy hard enough to scar the kid for life. Since then he’s been a social outcast at a New York private school. Through an unexpected turn of good fortune, he lands a scholarship to study in Paris, where everything starts to look up. But it doesn’t last. Connor’s host family inadvertently introduces him to the underworld of werewolves where there are two types: the born and the bitten. The born take the form of elegant wolves, while the latter are cursed to transform into the half-‐man, half-‐beast creatures of horror movies. The bitten rarely survive. Unfortunately, Connor is on the wanted list of a four hundred-‐year-‐old bitten human who’s searching for both a cure and a means of wiping out werewolves for good. Winner, 34th Atlantic Writing Competition Best Book for Kids and Teens, Canadian Children’s Book Centre!


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THE JEWEL OF THE THAMES – Angela Misri (series) YA Mystery | English (USA) | Fierce Ink Press (USA and Canada) | 253 pp. | March 2014 2 Seas Represents: Dutch and French rights (excl. Canada) only There’s a new detective at 221 Baker Street. Set against the background of 1930s England, Jewel of the Thames introduces Portia Adams, a budding detective with an interesting — and somewhat mysterious — heritage. When nineteen-‐year-‐old Portia’s mother dies, Portia is left puzzling over why she was she left in the guardianship of the extravagant Mrs. Jones. Portia is promptly whisked from Toronto to London by her guardian, where she discovers that she has inherited 221 Baker Street — the former offices of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Portia settles into her new home and gets to know her downstairs tenants, including the handsome and charming Brian Dawes. She also finds herself entangled in three cases. But the greatest mystery of all is her own. How did she come to inherit this townhouse? And why did her mother keep her heritage from her? Portia has a feeling Mrs. Jones knows more than she is letting on. In fact, she thinks her new guardian may be the biggest clue of all. Even for teens who haven’t yet encountered Doyle’s stories, Portia Adams will prove to be a whip-‐smart, worthy new heroine. ~ Quill and Quire THE TIFFIN – Mahtab Narsimhan Middle Grade Children’s Fiction | English (Canada) | Dancing Cat Books | 176 pp. | 2011 2 Seas Represents: Dutch and French rights (excl. Canada) only Rights Sold: UK (Hot Key Books/Bonnier), Japan (We’ve Inc.), China, Taiwan. The dabbawallas of Mumbai deliver box lunches — called tiffins — to whitecollar workers all over the vast city. They are legendary for their near-‐perfect service: for every six million lunches sent, only one will fail to reach its intended destination. The Tiffin is about that one time in millions when a box goes astray, changing lives forever. When a note placed in a tiffin is lost, a newborn, Kunal, is separated from his mother. Twelve years later, Kunal lives as a virtual slave under the thumb of his foster father, Seth. With danger and oppression making it impossible to stay where he is, Kunal asks his friend Vinayak, an aging dabbawalla, to help him find his birth mother. Vinayak introduces Kunal to the tiffin carriers, and a plan is hatched. Along the way, Kunal learns what it means to be part of a family. Finalist for the 2013 SYRCA Snow Willow Award, Finalist for the 2013 Red Maple Fiction Award, Finalist for the 2012 CLA Book of the Year for Children Award, Shortlisted for the 2013 Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award, A Resource Links Year’s Best Book for 2011, A Quill & Quire Book of the Year for 2011 (Books for Young People).


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LIFER – Beck Nicholas YA | Science Fiction | English (Canada) | Month9Books | 297 pp. | TBC 2 Seas Represents: Dutch and French rights (excl. Canada) only Asher is a Lifer, a slave aboard the spaceship Pelican. A member of the lowest rung of society, she must serve the ship’s Officials and Astronauts as punishment for her grandparents' crimes back on Earth. The one thing that made life bearable was her illicit relationship with Samuai, a Fishie boy, but he died alongside her brother in a freak training accident. Still grieving for the loss of her loved ones, Asher is summoned to the upper levels to wait on Lady, the head Official’s wife and Samuai’s mother. It is the perfect opportunity to gather intel for the Lifer’s brewing rebellion. There’s just one problem—the last girl who went to the upper levels never came back. On the other side of the universe, an alien attack has left Earth in shambles and a group called The Company has taken control. Blank wakes up in a pond completely naked and with no memory, not even his real name. So when a hot girl named Megs invites him to a black-‐market gaming warehouse where winning means information, he doesn’t think twice about playing. But sometimes the past is better left buried. As Asher and Blank’s worlds collide, the truth comes out—everyone has been lied to. Bourne Identity meets Under the Never Sky in this intergalactic tale of love and deception from debut novelist Beck Nicholas. NOT YOUR ORDINARY WOLF GIRL – Emily Pohl-‐Weary YA Fiction | English (Canada) | Razorbill/Penguin | 224 pp. | Sept. 2013 2 Seas Represents: Dutch and French rights (excl. Canada) only Rights sold: USA (Skyscape/Amazon Children’s) Eighteen-‐year-‐old rock star Sam Lee isn’t like other girls. She’s the super-‐talented bass player and songwriter for an all-‐girl indie band and an incurable loner. Then one night after a concert in Central Park, she’s attacked by a “wild dog.” Suddenly, this long-‐time vegetarian is craving meat—the bloodier, the better. Sam finds herself with an unbelievable secret and no one she trusts to share it. So begin the endless lies to cover up the hairy truth…. When a new girl gang appears in the city — with claws and paws — Sam suspects there’s a connection to her own inner beast. Trapped in a tug-‐of-‐war between her animal and human selves, forced to choose between the guy who sparks her carnal appetite and the one who makes her feel like a normal teenage girl, Sam has to unravel the mysteries of the werewolf world before her bandmates, the media, and her mother catch up to her.


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KISSING FROGS – Alisha Sevigny YA | Contemporary Romance | English (Canada) | Month9Books (US) | 248 pp. | TBC 2 Seas Represents: Dutch and French rights (excl. Canada) only Popular party girl and high school senior Jessica Scott has a secret: she used to be a nerd — a big one, a goody two-‐shoes, grade-‐skipping, all-‐state spelling bee champ. But she lost the braces, put on some contacts, and applied all her academic genius to studying and imitating the social elite. Now she rules the school from the upper echelon of the high school realm. With her cool new friends and hottest-‐guy-‐in-‐school boyfriend, life's a beach — and that's where she's headed for Spring Break. That is, until her teacher breaks the bad news that she's failing Biology — and her only chance to make up the grade is to throw away the culminating trip of her hard-‐earned popularity and join the Conservation Club in Panama to save the Golden Frog. Unable to let go of her faded college dreams, Jess finds herself in a foreign country with a new social crew, and one handsome face that stands out as a blast from the past, threatening to ruin her queen bee reputation. Travis Henley may have grown up, but he still likes to play childish games and as payment for retrieving Jess' lost ring from the bottom of a jungle pool, he wants three dates. While Jess does battle with spiders, snakes, wildfires and smart mean girls, she desperately tries to hang on to the last vestiges of her popular existence like the Golden Frog from its webbed toe. But as she starts to care about something more than tanning and texting – a species on the verge of disappearing forever – she may realize the worth of her inner nerd, and the one frog in particular that could be her prince in disguise. Set in the lush and tropical El Valle de Anton, this modern fairytale re-‐imagining of "The Frog Prince" is a toe-‐curling contemporary romance with an environmentalist heartbeat, in the tradition of Stephanie Perkins. Represented on Behalf of Villa-‐Boas & Moss Agency (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil): THE BOOK OF ENCHANTED LETTERS – Indigo YA Fiction | Brazilian Portuguese | Brinque-‐Book | 160 pp. | 2007 2 Seas Represents: Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish rights only English sample chapters available In this book, Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty speak for themselves. In their own words the three princesses recount a crucial period of their lives. Snow White has just been kicked out from Weitenburg Castle and is working in a coal mine settlement somewhere in the Black Forest. Sleeping Beauty is about to turn sixteen, pricking her finger on a spinning wheel and falling into a deep sleep. Cinderella has been disinherited. She is now living in a fetid basement and has to work 24/7. Living in seclusion, each one due to a different twist of fate, they maintain a frantic and desperate written correspondence.


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THE RISKY LIFE OF SMALL BIRDS – Miriam Leitao YA Fiction | Brazilian Portuguese | Rocco | 52 pp. | 2013 2 Seas Represents: Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish rights only The Risky Life of Small Birds is a sweet parable that touches deep political and environmental questions -‐ to such an extent that it is enjoyable even by grownups. Besides, it is highly didactic and rigorously scientific about bird species in Brazil. At a farm, small birds feel that the shrinking woods are jeopardizing their safety. Nests are being built in short trees, making it risky for the babies. They decide to orchestrate a concert to call human attention to their plight, and for that they must get the support of the birds in the deep woods, which never come to the plains. Incredible lesson on how to organize collective action. Published in October last year, readers fell in love with the small birds, and the book has already sold over 15.000 copies. A small bird whispered to Miriam Leitão: write a children’s book. She followed its advice, and from Miriam’s beautiful narrative, we now can learn with great pleasure everything there is to know about Brazilian birds. ~ Simone Intrator, O Globo THE MOUNTAIN WHISPERER – Eduardo Moreira YA Fiction | Brazilian Portuguese | Record | 160 pp. | April 2014 2 Seas Represents: Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish rights only English sample chapters available Eduardo Moreira’s YA novel is an inspiring narrative that takes place in a mythical Greek forest, many centuries ago. The story is the quest of Polio, the novel’s protagonist, for the teachings of Laervas, a master that developed his wisdom through contemplation of natural events in the forest. A story about consciousness, respect, learning from nature and believing in dreams, which may vaguely remind the reader of Paulo Coelho’s fiction. The book was written after real dreams experienced by the author throughout one year of his youth. The intriguing coincidences and mysteries of that creation process are depicted in the first chapter of the book. The Mountain Whisperer was launched after the enormous success of Life Whisperers, which sold over 100.000 copies and reached the top of all bestseller lists in Brazil, since April 2012. Sold over 10.000 books up to now.

2 Seas Agency 2014 Bologna Hot List

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