A bit of news on two books that haven't even been published yet, but are already on their way to becoming movies:

  • New Line acquired the rights to Maggie Stiefvater's young adult novel The Raven Boys before it is released next week.  Akiva Goldsman will produce the adaptation, "a love story with a twist revolves around the offspring of psychic parents who is told that if she find her true love and kisses him then he will die."
  • Universal hired Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road) to adapt 90 Church: The True Story of the Narcotics Squad from Hell into a script about "a green recruit whose eyes are opened by working in the corrupt Federal Narcotics Bureau in New York City in the 1960s."  Dean Unkefer's book doesn't come out until May 2013.  Rupert Sanders is attached to direct.

Hit the jump for both book synopses.

Thanks to The Wrap for the tip on both stories.

The Raven Boys

the raven boys book cover

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore. [Amazon]

 

90 Church

90 church book cover

From 1950 through the late 1960s, America feared two great enemies: Communism and illegal drugs. While the espionage stories have been well publicised, the war against drugs was far more violent and has remained mostly secret. In New York City, the centre of organised crime and drug import, the offices of the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics were based at 90 Church Street. While the FBI refused even to acknowledge organised crime, these agents stood alone against a well-organised Mafia and vicious drug cartels.

To survive against impossible odds, the agents used incredibly brutal and cunning tactics to make cases and bring the war to a stalemate. Using an ever-expanding network of criminal informants held together by secret immunity deals, the sinister reputation of 90 Church grew along with the rising body count. In 1968, alarmed politicians launched an ill-fated investigation into the Bureau's operations. Accusations were made against the agents, and now fighting a war on two fronts, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was dissolved and its agents discredited. Though some names and sequences have been changed to protect identities, 90 Church is the real story of a young agent's downward slide into hell as he falls victim to addiction, deception, violence, and shifting loyalties. [Amazon]