Everyone involved is being very polite about this.

"The word 'American' has appeared in quite a few titles," said Ms. Abraham by phone last week. She only recently heard of American Subversive, and isn't worried about it. "I heard that it was more of a thriller thing," she said. Her editor, David Ebershoff, added that he has "heard good things" about Mr. Goodwillie's book, and dismissed the near-simultaneity as "a coincidence."

Ms. Abraham's hero is a John Walker Lindh type whose quest for spiritual fulfillment carries him from the beaches of South Carolina to the caves of Afghanistan, PowerBars in his rucksack all the while. American Subversive is about a jaded blogger--his page-view-obsessed boss a pitch-perfect version of Gawker Media's Nick Denton--on the trail of a Kentucky eco-terrorist who recently planted a bomb in Barneys.

Mr. Ebershoff called Ms. Abraham "prescient," and said he bought the novel knowing that homegrown terrorism was in the zeitgeist. "I'm not surprised that another novelist was thinking along these lines," he said.

Mr. Goodwillie started American Subversive in 2006, a year before Ms. Abraham started hers, and Scribner bought his book months before Random House picked up American Taliban.

His editor, Paul Whitlatch, said he's been aware of the situation for months--does Scribner have a better intelligence service than Random House?--but insisted it hasn't affected his publicity campaign, which includes launching a blog called Roorback.com, based on the one at the center of the book. "The cover design for each novel is very distinct," he said, "and a quick glance at the jacket copy would reveal that they are wholly different stories."

Ms. Abraham, meanwhile, is focusing on her own promotional tour and, like her surfer-turned-enemy combatant, remaining Zen. "A book has its life," she said. "Maybe the two books will help each other."

No word just yet on how much they paid, but the two-day auction took place during late December. The soon-to-be-former first lady is quoted in the release as saying she is "very pleased to be associated with Scribner, the distinguished publishing house of many of [her] favorite books.”

Mrs. Bush's memoir was the subject of a recent Talk of the Town piece by Observer alum Sheelah Kolhatkar, in which several editors and publishers were quoted on their expectations for the book and its prospects in the market.

"She was not forthcoming about anything that I would consider controversial," one publisher who met with Mrs. Bush before the auction was quoted as saying. "We questioned her rigorously, but it was one-word answers. I considered it the worst, or the most frustrating, meeting of its sort that I’ve ever had."

A publisher at a different company told The New Yorker that he/she had chosen not to meet with Mrs. Bush, and had heard from those who had that they were "totally underwhelmed."

Industry reporter Michael Cader, who runs the news hub PublishersMarketplace.com, wrote in a posting at the end of the month that those quoted in the New Yorker piece were just "trying to manipulate down the selling price."

Citing Robert Barnett, the DC lawyer who represented Mrs. Bush on her memoir, Mr. Cader reported that eight publishers were interested in pursuing the book.

"Far from declining to meet, there were several more who asked for a meeting who we were not able to accommodate because of scheduling," Mr. Barnett was quoted as saying. "The meetings were lively, insightful, and revealing. I have been at this long enough to know that, because certain publishers are well-known for being pathologically unable to maintain confidentiality, you don't reveal your best material in multi-publisher meetings. We will resolve it right after the first of the year."

The New York Times first reported the deal this morning, noting that Ms. Welch will be edited by Scribner's Samantha Martin.

Titled 10-10-10, the book will be Ms. Welch's second, though her first, 2005's bestselling Winning, was co-written with her husband. 

Washington lawyer Robert Barnett, who has recently brokered massive book deals for political heavyweights Karl Rove, Ted Kennedy, and Tony Blair, represented Ms. Welch in the deal. Mr. Barnett would not comment on the size of the advance Ms. Welch received--publishing insiders said it was rumored to be in the neighborhood of $1 million--but said there was already "strong foreign interest" from publishers abroad looking to acquire rights.

Ms. Welch, who writes columns for BusinessWeek and O, rose to prominence in 2002 after it was revealed that she and Mr. Welch—at that time married to someone else—were having an affair that began after she conducted an interview with him for an article in the Harvard Business Review.

Ms. Rakoff confirmed the deal, which was brokered by literary agent Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit, in an e-mail.