AUTUMN PAPERPACK PREVIEW
advantage of
the success of
his début, The
Faithful Spy,
Arrow is aiming
for Lee Child’s
readership.
Tesco slots
should help.
Annie Sanders
Busy Woman Seeks Wife
Orion, £6.99, 21st, 9780752893525
Aimed at the majority of
women who know that having
it all requires domestic help,
this won’t disappoint fans of
100,000-selling Goodbye, Jimmy
Choo.
Linda Kelsey
The Secret Lives of Sisters
Hodder, £6.99, 21st,
9780340933411
After the success of Fifty is
Not a Four-letter Word, Kelsey
should strike a chord again
with this sharp novel exploring
the bonds of sisterhood.
Irène
Némirovsky
Fire in the Blood
Vintage, £7.99, 2nd,
9780099516095
This sold 35,000
in hardback, but
I suspect the
relative weakness
of Némirovsky’s interim
paperback originals David
Golder and Le Bal will mean
sales will be well short of the
420,000 of Suite Française.
Joe Peters
Cry Silent Tears
HarperElement, £6.99, 4th,
9780007274062
Left mute after witnessing the
death of his father, Joe Peters
was unable to protect himself
from appalling abuse at the
hands of his family.
BUBBLING UNDER
Peter Ackroyd
Thames
Vintage, £14.99, 2nd,
9780099422556
Apparently
a significant
proportion
of his 60,000
hardback sales
were made outside the capital.
His “biography” of London has
now sold a quarter of a million
and this is just as riveting. The
level of detail from a writer so
prolific is astounding.
J M Coetzee
Diary of a Bad Year
Vintage, £7.99, 2nd,
9780099516224
25,000 hardback
sales is
disappointing but
the consensus
from colleagues
of mine who have read this is
that this will be considered one
of his minor works.
Adam Williams
The Dragon’s Tail
Hodder, £6.99, 7th, 9780340899120
While the West was enjoying
increasing liberalisation, China
was enduring a regime whose
brutality lead to the Tiananmen
Square massacre and its
aftermath. Williams vividly
portrays the consequences to
the lives and loves of China’s
people.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
The Breakdown Lane
John Murray, £6.99, 21st, 9780719523120
Her writing is distinguished by
the depth of characterisation
and the challenges Mitchard
confronts her personae with.
Now that Asda is stocking her,
John Murray hopes to boost
her sales of 50,000 by 50%.
Kevin Lewis
Fallen Angel
Penguin, £6.99, 7th, 9780141030104
Having made a successful
transfer from misery memoir
to gritty crime fiction, taking
his ability to get under his
readers’ skin with him, the
first in a detective series goes
straight into paperback.
Beverly Barton
The Murder Game
Avon, £6.99, 25th,
9781847560599
Her début topped
The Bookseller
heatseekers
chart and sales
are growing,
helped by jackets which stand
out in a crowded field.
Matt Beaumont
Small World
Black Swan, £6.99, 11th,
9780552774567
Transworld was disappointed
to lose out to HarperCollins
on buying e., a Christmas
bestseller hampered by
availability issues in 2000.
Narrated by its interrelated
characters, this is perhaps
a better book, which is
www.thebookseller.com The Bookseller Autumn Paperback Preview | 6 June 2008 15
emotionally believable and
absurdly funny at times.
Daisy Waugh
The Desperate
Diary of a Country
Housewife
HarperFiction, £6.99,
4th, 9780007259847
Based on the
author’s Sunday
Times column.
Readers may be stolen by
Judith O’Reilly’s Wife in the
North, out in July.
Belinda Jones
Out of the Blue
Arrow, £6.99, 14th,
9780099517634
She’s been moved from the
welter of summer releases
and given a slightly more
adult look. Given fans’ mixed
reactions to her explorations of
Venice in her last, I’m not sure
this is what they want.
ONES TO WATCH
Catherine King
Silk and Steel
Sphere, £6.99, 21st,
9780751539080
This was on
the Romantic
Novelists’
Association’s
Novel of
the Year shortlist and with
supermarket support this
time, King is bringing the oldfashioned
saga to a new young
audience keen on tales of
misery and grit. The plan this
time is to break 50,000.
Deborah Lawrenson
Songs of Blue and Gold
Arrow, £6.99, 7th, 9780099505198
Owing a considerable debt to
Lawrence Durrell’s Prospero’s
Cell, this stylish summer
romance is aimed squarely
at fans of Douglas Kennedy,
whose jacket style is closely
matched.
Mark Cocker
Crow Country
Vintage, £8.99, 7th,
9780099485087
Co-author of
Birds Britannica,
Cocker found
plenty of plaudits
for this in end of
year round-ups. His knowledge
and passion is matched by the
ethereal poetry of his writing
and this Samuel Johnson Prizeshortlisted
title will attract
PRODUCT PREVIEW
fans of Roger Deakin and W G
Sebald.
Jeremy Scahill
Blackwater
Serpent’s Tail, £8.99,
14th, 9781846686528
This chilling
exposé of the
controversial
private army
employed by
the Bush administration sold
20,000 in trade paperback.
The award-winning author has
reported from conflict hotspots
around the world and writes
regularly for the Guardian.
Andrew Mueller
I Wouldn’t Start From Here
Portobello, £8.99, 1st, 9781846271519
Travelling the world’s conflict
hotspots and getting into a
fair few scrapes along the way,
the former NME journalist’s
unconventional travelogue
offers an engaging blend of
offbeat humour and openminded
analysis.
John Hart
Down River
John Murray, £6.99, 7th, 9780719521614
A great literary thriller, full of
grudges and allegiances with
deep-set origins and some
smart red herrings.
Pam Lewis
Perfect Family
Headline Review, £7.99, 7th,
9780755332076
Headline is determined to
make this psychological
thriller a hit. My reader wasn’t
completely convinced—it
doesn’t quite live up to its
literary ambitions at times,
apparently, but ratchets up the
suspense effectively.
Elina Hirvonen
When I Forgot
Portobello, £7.99, 1st, 9781846270956
My reader was very much
taken by this Finnish gem—a
gently deconstructionist
examination of a traumatised
mind.
Imogen Parker
The Things We Do
for Love
Corgi, £6.99, 25th,
9780552151559
At the time of
writing, retail
slots are still to
be confirmed,
but Transworld has high
hopes and a great look for this
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