Obits

Diane Leslie, 84, longtime bookseller at Dutton’s Brentwood and Diesel Books as well as the author of two novels, died on June 9. Leslie’s books Fleur de Leigh’s Life of Crime (1999) and Fleur de Leigh in Exile (2003) were published by Simon & Schuster. A celebration of life will be announced along with the release of her forthcoming novel later this summer. Karen Mitchell, director of strategic projects at Penguin Random House, will be honored in a memorial service celebrating her life and memory on July 5 in New York City. The family invites the publishing community to join […]

Jane Yolen, 87, author of 450 books, died on June 11. Yolen’s books include Holocaust novella The Devil’s Arithmetic, plus 40 other novels. Her final novel MONSTER OF FIFE: TERROR BIRDS will be published on July 14. In addition to her prolific writing career, Yolen also ran her own young adult fiction imprint at Harcourt Brace from 1990-1996.

Judith Barnard, 94, died on May 6 of heart failure, the New York Times reports. Under the pseudonym Judith Michael, Barnard wrote 11 romantic thrillers with her husband Michael Fain, starting with the bestselling Deceptions in 1982. Barnard previously worked as a journalist and in 1967 published the novel The Past and Present of Solomon Sorge under her own name.

Author and literary agent Rhian Thomas-Parry, 30, died on April 25 after a stage four cancer diagnosis. Thomas-Parry was an agent with Blair Partnership, where she also managed film, TV and audio rights and permissions. She had just signed with Lauren Gardner at Bell Lomax Moreton for her romantasy novel A Mortal Drowning. Gardner told The Bookseller, “Rhian and I signed together last summer for her romantasy novel A Mortal Drowning, after I fell in love with her lyrical and witty prose. When Rhian shared the news of her diagnosis with me, she told me that she wanted to pursue writing for […]

Dean Cooke, 71, founder of CookeMcDermid, died on April 14 “after a brief illness.” The agency writes in a memorial post on Instagram, “Dean was a consummate book person who devoted over forty years of his life to publishing. He knew every aspect of the business, starting in a warehouse and working his way up through different depatments at Doubleday and Lester & Orpen Dennys, and later became Publisher of Bantam Seal. He began his agency work at Livingston Cooke in 1992, which merged with the Harding Agency and later The McDermid Agency to become CookeMcDermid in 2017.” The remembrance continues, […]