PRODUCT PREVIEW
should again be queen of
her field.
BUBBLING UNDER
Xiaolu Guo
A Concise Chinese-English
Dictionary for Lovers
Vintage, £7.99, 3rd, 9780099501473
Comparisons with A Short
History of Tractors in Ukrainian
are inevitable but not unhelpful,
although this has more pathos.
Claudia Carroll
Remind Me Again
Why I Need a Man
Black Swan, £6.99, 1st,
9780553819342
Already an
Irish bestseller
(Carroll is a
soap star there)
and with a Fox TV series in
development, this irresistibly-
titled début should tempt fans
of Marian Keyes and Sophie
Kinsella.
Jim Crace
The Pesthouse
Picador, £7.99, 4th,
9780330445634
My favourite
writer produces
another
eloquent work
of what fellow
author Justin Cartwright
describes as “near genius”.
Ishmael Beah
A Long Way Gone
Perennial, £7.99, 7th,
9780007247097
This remarkable
memoir of a
child soldier in
Sierra Leone sits
well alongside
Philip Gourevitch’s account of
the Rwandan genocide.
Tom Cain
The Accident Man
Corgi, £6.99, 28th, 9780552155359
This first Samuel Carver
thriller capably mines the
conspiracy theories relating to
the death of Diana, Princess of
Wales. It outsold sales of fellow
thriller author John Twelve
Hawks’ first title in hardback
and should do the same in
paperback.
ONES TO WATCH
Elena Forbes
Die with Me
Quercus, £6.99, 10th, 9781847242914
My reader found everything
in this serial killer thriller
thoroughly creepy, including
the detective inspector.
Ruthanna Hopper & Amanda
Goldberg
Celebutantes
Orion, £6.99, 10th, 9780752883175
The daughters of, respectively,
Dennis Hopper and “Charlie’s
Angels” producer Leonard
Goldberg team up. With all the
luxury products and celebs
mentioned, my reader felt they
hadn’t left much room for a
plot.
Gyles
Brandreth
Oscar Wilde and
the Candlelight
Murders
John Murray, £6.99,
10th, 9780719569302
This bounces
along with vim
and wit. Beautifully packaged,
it includes the first chapter of
the May follow-up.
Miranda
Seymour
In My Father’s
House
Simon & Schuster,
£7.99, 7th,
9781416502722
This “posh
misery memoir”
sold more than 8,000 in
hardback and is the Daily Mail
Book Club choice for January.
Ryu Murakami
Piercing
Bloomsbury, £7.99, 7th,
9780747593133
Favourite
author of (the
unrelated)
Haruki, Murakami
sold 24,000
in trade and mass market
paperbacks of In the Miso Soup.
The new cover is very alluring
and his cult status is likely
to grow.
FEBRUARY
GIANTS
Alexander
McCall Smith
The Good Husband
of Zebra Drive
Abacus, £6.99, 7th,
9780349117737
This is the
eighth in the
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
12 The Bookseller Spring Paperback Preview | 4 January 2008 www.thebookseller.com
series. The Christmas TV
version of the original should
spread the word nicely and
Little, Brown’s first hardback of
the series follows in March.
James
Patterson &
Michael
Ledwidge
Step on a Crack
Headline, £6.99, 7th,
9780755330416
Patterson’s
thrillers seem to be written on a
bigger scale than his rivals’ and
his sales certainly are too.
Stephen King
Blaze
Hodder, £6.99, 21st, 9780340952245
This previously unreleased
title was written under the
pseudonym Richard Bachman
in 1973. Lisey’s Story outsold
every previous King hardback,
so he’s clearly never going to
fall out of fashion.
Richard
Montanari
Broken Angels
Arrow, £6.99, 14th,
9780099499824
A massive seller
in supermarkets,
Montanari
achieved giant
status from the off. A major
poster campaign may make this
his first to break the 250,000
mark.
Adele Parks
Young Wives’ Tales
Penguin, £6.99, 7th,
9780141024783
Penguin is
linking up
with premium
wine and shoe
brands to
cross-promote. She has new
hardback in June too.
Katie Fforde
Going Dutch
Arrow, £6.99, 28th,
9780099499831
Fforde has
now earned
a hardback
release and her
latest paperback
sees a distinctive new look. Her
last title sold 160,000 copies.
Danielle Steel
Sisters
Corgi, £6.99, 25th, 9780552154727
A number one in hardback as
SPRING PAPERBACK PREVIEW
usual and Steel’s new look has
pushed sales up by 13%—last
February’s paperback sold
more than 180,000 copies.
Freya North
Pillow Talk
Harper, £6.99, 4th,
9780007245925
North is up
to sales of
200,000 since
moving from
Heinemann.
This sweet novel about
sleepwalking should be good
for Valentine’s Day sales.
Robyn Young
Crusade
Hodder, £6.99, 7th,
9780340839744
The sequel to
Brethren, the
title which sold
100,000 copies.
Editor Nick Sayers has just
signed up a second trilogy.
Stuart Maconie
Pies and Prejudice
Ebury, £7.99, 7th,
9780091910235
Supermarket
support for
this warm and
witty journey,
whereby
Maconie searches for the
“essence of the North”, means
potential sales for the former
GQ Man of the Year are
immense.
BESTSELLERS
Carole
Matthews
The Chocolate
Lovers’ Diet
Review, £6.99, 21st,
9780755335879
Matthews’
broad appeal no
doubt explains
her sales figures. Her last title,
Welcome to the Real World, sold
more than 80,000 copies and
this looks promising on the title
alone.
Chelsea Cain
Heartsick
Pan, £6.99, 1st, 9780330449809
This blood-soaked début
impressed my reader.
Mark Gimenez
The Abduction
Sphere, £6.99, 7th, 9780751539462
Gimenez’s future plans are for
legal thrillers like The Colour
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