PRODUCT PREVIEW
Penguin to market this teenage
title to adults with the usual
Hornby livery in the hope of
matching the 450,000 copies
sold of A Long Way Down.
Sebastian Faulks
Engleby
Vintage, £7.99, 3rd, 9780099458272
This confirms the new
sophistication to Faulks’
writing which was seen in
Human Traces, a title that sold
320,000 copies. Should appeal
to fans of Notes on a Scandal
and Beyond Black.
Lisa Jewell
31 Dream Street
Penguin, £6.99, 3rd,
9780141012209
Penguin aren’t
taking Jewell’s
usual sales
in excess of
100,000 for
granted. The eye-catching
jacket will be backed by a
massive campaign across
posters and women’s
magazines, emphasising her
fairytale style.
Tasmina Perry
Gold Diggers
Harper, £6.99, 21st, 9780007262397
Her first, Daddy’s Girls,
sold 150,000 copies and
this thoroughly modern
bonkbuster should do just as
well.
J R R Tolkien
The Children of
Húrin
HarperCollins, £7.99,
7th, 9780007252268
Mixed reviews
did little to dent
sales of this
in hardback.
To quote the Independent: “It
isn’t jolly, but then neither is
‘Anthony and Cleopatra’.”
Torey Hayden
Silent Boy
Element, £6.99, 7th, 9780007258819
One of the stars of the misery
memoir genre, and deservedly
so: Hayden is now an NSPCC
spokesperson.
Bill Bryson
Shakespeare
Perennial, £7.99, 7th,
9780007197903
One national treasure’s
biography of another. Bryson’s
popular touch is most welcome
in an age when a contestant
on Channel 4’s “Big Brother”
admitted to having never heard
of the Bard.
BESTSELLERS
Simon Beckett
Written in Bone
Bantam, £6.99, 7th,
9780553817508
A sinister
second from the
50,000-selling
author of The
Chemistry of
Death, which grabbed my
reader from the off. He may
threaten Cornwell and Reichs
in time.
Anchee Min
The Last Empress
Bloomsbury, £7.99, 7th,
9780747593164
Sequel to the
300,000-selling
“Richard &
Judy” title
Empress
Orchid. Bloomsbury’s £40,000
marketing spend smartly
marries the two covers.
Kerry Katona
Rough Justice
Ebury, £6.99, 3rd,
9780091923242
The second
paperback
original
novel from
Katona, whose
autobiography sold 380,000.
The first, Tough Love, is selling
well in both supermarkets and
on the high street.
Faye Kellerman
The Burnt House
Harper, £6.99, 7th, 9780007243228
Some of her fans might have
moved on since her last Peter
Decker title four years ago.
Blake Morrison
South of the River
Vintage, £7.99, 3rd,
9780099502562
A state-of-thenation
title about
the 1990s. With
the same blend
of comedy and
pathos that The Rotters’ Club
was to the 1970s and Rumours
of a Hurricane to the 1980s. A
great new jacket.
Jonathan Hayes
Precious Blood
Arrow, £6.99, 3rd, 9780099517542
A stomach-turning début serial
killer thriller.
18 The Bookseller Spring Paperback Preview | 4 January 2008 www.thebookseller.com
Rowan Coleman
The Accidental Wife
Arrow, £6.99, 24th, 9780099493075
The Accidental Mother has sold
130,000 copies and Coleman’s
return to the classy end of
popular women’s fiction should
see sales not too far short of
that.
Paige Toon
Johnny Be Good
Pocket, £6.99, 21st,
9781847390448
Chick lit with
lashings of
celebrity
glamour: Toon
is reviews editor
for Heat magazine, so clearly
knows her target readership
well. Her first sold 90,000
copies and spent four months
in The Bookseller’s Heatseekers
chart.
Lionel Shriver
The Post-birthday World
Harper, £7.99, 7th, 9780007245147
Shriver’s first new novel since
her modern classic We Need To
Talk About Kevin is unlikely to
scale the same heights, but her
many new fans will want to try it.
Mohsin Hamid
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Penguin, £7.99, 3rd, 9780141029542
This Man Booker-shortlisted
title, with an outstanding and
ingenious exploration of how
America alienates the Muslim
world, sold 15,000 in hardback.
The author is a media natural.
Roland Vernon
A Dark Enchantment
Black Swan, £6.99, 7th, 9780552775007
Winner of the Daily Mail First
Novel Award, with the media
benefits that implies.
Tami Hoag
The Alibi Man
Orion, £6.99, 16th,
9780752881836
My reader
found this a little
stodgy at times,
but Hoag’s last,
Dead Sky, sold
80,000 copies within the first
month of A-format release.
Trudi Canavan
Voice of the Gods
Orbit, £7.99, 3rd, 9781841495170
The conclusion to the Age of
the Five trilogy. Sales haven’t
quite matched her earlier Black
Magician series, which has
sold around 400,000 units.
SPRING PAPERBACK PREVIEW
Gregory Maguire
Son of a Witch
Review, £7.99, 3rd, 9780755341566
Helped by the smash-hit
musical, Wicked sold more than
100,000 copies. The sequel
perhaps moves a little too far
away from “The Wizard of Oz”
to have quite as much appeal.
Bill Frindall (ed)
Playfair Cricket Annual 2008
Headline, £6.99, 3rd, 9780755317455
Annual sales reliably top 50,000.
BUBBLING UNDER
Caro Ramsay
Absolution
Penguin, £6.99, 24th,
9780141029245
Set in Glasgow
and featuring a
killer with a flair
for the dramatic,
this is a smart
débutante in the gory crime
genre and should hook crime
readers looking for something
new post-Rebus.
Christian Jacq
Manhunt
Pocket, £6.99, 7th, 9781847390608
The excitement generated by
his Ramses pentalogy initiated
the current appetite for pacey,
plot-driven historical fiction.
This is the first in a two-part
series and sold 20,000 in trade.
Isabel Allende
Inés of My Soul
Perennial, £7.99, 7th, 9780007241187
The Chilean will be in the
UK for publication and her
memoir, The Sum of All Days, is
published simultaneously.
Carrie Adams
The Stepmother
Review, £6.99, 17th, 9780755329571
Featuring the same star as The
Godmother, which topped The
Bookseller’s Heatseekers chart.
If I have my sub-genres right,
this is chick noir.
Ronan Bennett
Zugzwang
Bloomsbury, £7.99, 7th,
9780747587293
My reader
described this as
a literary version
of Interpretation
of Murder before seeing the
uncannily similar jacket.
Anita Amirrezvani
The Blood of Flowers
Review, £7.99, 3rd, 9780755334216
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.