PRODUCT PREVIEW
of Law, but this more emotive
diversion should bring him a
decent female fanbase too.
Charlotte
Bingham
Goodnight
Sweetheart
Bantam, £6.99, 11th,
9780553817812
Bingham’s
24th title and
set during the
Second World War, which her
fans seem to like best. Her
track record suggests sales of
around 60,000.
Sally Worboyes
Lipstick and
Powder
Orion, £6.99, 7th,
9780752893204
Warboyes’ East
End sagas have
a loyal following
and sales of
2004’s Time Will Tell nearly
reached six figures.
Peter Temple
Black Tide
Quercus, £6.99, 7th, 9781847242976
Australia’s biggest crime writer
and the winner of the 2007
Crime Writers’ Association
Duncan Lawrie Dagger for
standalone The Broken Shore.
Quercus now hopes to sell
100,000 copies of the second
Jack Irish title.
Lindsey Davis
Saturnalia
Arrow, £7.99, 7th,
9780099493839
Sales of the
hardback were
up 16% on Davis’
previous best, so
Random House
expects to sell 75,000 copies,
particularly with the switch
to B-format (along with the
backlist).
Tracy Chevalier
Burning Bright
Harper, £6.99, 4th, 9780007178360
My reader felt that the
painstaking research of London
sometimes overwhelmed the
narrative. After the glinting
copper flashes of the hardback
this is a drab jacket for the
author of the million-selling Girl
with a Pearl Earring.
Indra Sinha
Animal’s People
Pocket, £7.99, 4th, 9781416526278
Simon & Schuster is justly
proud of its first-ever
appearance on the Man Booker
shortlist with this sparky,
moving novel and its 30,000
sales in trade paperback.
Daniel Mason
A Far Country
Picador, £7.99, 1st,
9780330492706
The Piano Tuner
sold 250,000, but
my reader didn’t
feel this had the
same resonance.
Kitty Neale
Sins of the Father
Avon, £5.99, 4th, 9781847560216
Neale’s first gritty saga,
Nobody’s Girl, sold nearly 65,000
copies. Avon should maximise
sales with the low price point
and the larger print.
Dilly Court
A Mother’s Courage
Arrow, £5.99, 14th,
9780099519324
A good price
point and
nicely timed for
Mother’s Day.
Court’s previous
five sagas all sold more than
50,000.
Coleen
McLoughlin
Welcome to My
World
Harper, £7.99, 4th,
9780007255429
Hardback sales
aren’t too far
short of six
figures, and of course now
she’ll be following Katie Price
and Kerry Katona into the
fiction market.
David Thomas
Tell Me Why,
Mummy
Element, £6.99, 4th,
9780007256372
An unusual
misery memoir:
the author is a
World Memory
Champion. The hardback sold
20,000 copies.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan
Penguin, £8.99, 28th, 9780141034591
This analysis of the impact of
improbable events sold more
than 15,000 copies in hardback
and was shortlisted for the FT/
Goldman Sachs Business Book
of the Year.
14 The Bookseller Spring Paperback Preview | 4 January 2008 www.thebookseller.com
BUBBLING UNDER
Amy Appleton
The Bride Hunter
Orion, £6.99, 20th,
9780752893167
A pseudonymous
“début” for
a bestselling
author. A fun
read, which is
stylishly presented.
Martin
Langfield
The Malice Box
Penguin, £6.99, 28th,
9780141025063
The online
Malice Box
quest left the
hardback just
outside the Sunday Times’
chart. Supermarket support
could make this Indiana Jonesstyle
adventure a huge hit.
Kate Lawson
Mum’s the Word
Avon, £6.99, 4th, 9781847560100
A sparky, fun read which is
perfect for Mother’s Day. The
author was shortlisted for the
inaugural Melissa Nathan
Award (won by Marian Keyes).
Philip Kerr
The One from the
Other
Quercus, £6.99, 7th,
9781847242921
Kerr takes a
break from
his excellent
Akhenaten
series for children to resurrect
his Berlin trilogy’s Bernie
Gunther.
Milly Johnson
The Birds and the
Bees
Pocket, £6.99, 7th,
9781416525912
Johnson’s début,
The Yorkshire
Pudding Club,
sold 35,000
copies and the willingness of
the former Hallmark cards
copywriter to promote should
see this sell more.
China Miéville
Un Lun Dun
Pan, £6.99, 1st,
9780330453479
A modern-day
Lewis Carroll,
Miéville’s first
for teenagers
should also
delight his adult fans.
SPRING PAPERBACK PREVIEW
Ian Kershaw
Fateful Choices
Penguin, £8.99, 28th,
9780141014180
The bestselling
biographer of
Hitler looks at
10 key decisions
of the Second
World War, and explores what
might have resulted from
different outcomes. Well
written as ever, this sold more
than 10,000 copies in hardback.
ONES TO WATCH
Jody Shields
The Crimson
Portrait
Black Swan, £6.99,
25th, 9780552999762
It’s been eight
years since
The Fig Eater,
but this story
of a First World War widow’s
unconventional attempts to
come to terms with her loss is
moving enough to sell strongly.
Justin
Cartwright
The Song Before It
Is Sung
Bloomsbury, £7.99, 4th,
9780747585947
I do hope that
the 120,000
sold of The
Promise of Happiness (thanks
to “Richard & Judy”) will see
this outstanding book from the
Whitbread winner widely read.
Richard Powers
The Echo Maker
Vintage, £7.99, 7th,
9780099506027
This 2006
winner of the US
National Book
Award for fiction
explores ideas of
family and identity. As good as
Richard Ford.
Georgina Harding
The Solitude of Thomas Cave
Bloomsbury, £7.99, 4th, 9780747594451
This atmospheric début, which
has a 17th-century protagonist
with powerful reasons for
wanting to undertake a wager
that he can survive the Arctic
winter alone, was my favourite
novel of 2007. One to read, sub
big and handsell to all you can!
Charlotte Mendelson
When We Were Bad
Picador, £7.99, 1st, 9780330449304
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