This week saw some news in the UK which suggests, tentatively, that the end of the current lockdown might be in sight for millions of people. In addition, the past seven days, during which so many of our authors continued to excel, entertain and enthral, saw some proper spring-like weather. It seems fitting therefore, to start the week’s highlights with this stunning cover reveal:
Ethan Joella’s beautiful debut, A Little Hope, published by Simon and Schuster in the US, immerses the reader into a community of friends, family, and neighbours, and celebrates the importance of small moments of connection, and how love and forgiveness can help us survive even the most difficult of life’s challenges. We could all do with a bit of that at the moment.
Also revealed this week was the cover for Helly Acton’s second book, The Couple:
Published this summer, The Couple is an innovative and fun look at how love conquers all, even when you really don’t want it to.
And our final cover reveal of the week is for the US edition of Maisie Chan’s Danny Chung Sums It Up. Published by Amuley Books, and released in September this year, this is a touching and funny middle-grade story about a boy whose life is turned upside down when his Chinese grandmother moves in.
There has been some incredible publicity for our authors this week. The Long, Long Afternoon by Inga Vesper was recently published and has been garnering a flurry of ecstatic reviews, which led to the novel being highlighted in The Bookseller’s weekly round-up.
The Evening Standard said, “A triumph…For once the hype is justified and Inga Vesper’s gripping page turner must surely now be bound for Netflix.”
The Guardian said, “The Long, Long Afternoon is a riveting and deeply atmospheric mystery from the cracked heart of the American Dream.”
Beth Morrey’s Saving Missy has been longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. Congratulations, Beth! She also took part in #HarperFictionFriday at 1pm today, which is a weekly Twitter chat where an author participates in a Q&A with readers, and you can search for the hashtag to see what was said.
In upcoming news, Beth will be embarking on a blog tour in March and we recommend catching her in her various virtual locations on Twitter.
If you’re looking for some fun, we highly recommend Beth’s article in Red Online about the sheer joy of homeschooling. Beth’s experiences have no doubt been similar to millions of other households, but her outlook on it is completely unique!
It’s not every day that the Royal Academy dedicates a whole section of their online shop to your book, but this exact thing happened to our author, Katherine May, when her bestseller, Wintering, was declared the RA’s Read of the Month. You can buy the book here, and you can buy lots of gorgeous winter-inspired items here.
Moving on to Ashley Audrain’s bestselling novel, The Push, Ashely was interviewed on Tamron Hall’s Let’s Get Lit episode this week. You can watch the video here. The Push was also seen on Instagram as Dawn O’Porter posted about how gripped (and terrified) she was by Ashley’s debut.
And in China, The Push is Number 9 on the Douban hot title list (the Chinese equivalent of GoodReads). We’re extremely impressed their fantastic social media marketing and appropriately sinister jacket design.
Clare Pooley’s wonderful The Authenticity Project is top of The Bookseller’s Heatseekers Chart, which highlights the authors that don’t appear in the Top 50 Chart, but that are selling well week-by-week.
Helen Rutter, the author of The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh, was featured with her son Lenny, who inspired the book, on This Morning. You can still catch this dazzling duo on BBC iPlayer.
After the recent publication of his book, Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow, Ben Dean gave an interview to BookTrust about his favourite LGBTQ+ books. As Ben rightly says, “Finding ourselves in books is one of the most important things.” He included Proud of Me by fellow MM Agency author, Sarah Hagger-Holt, who was thrilled.
The Kansas NEA Reading Circle Recommended Title List for this year included Holly Bourne’s It Only Happens in the Movies for their selection. Each spring the newest list is published and sent at no cost to every school in the state of Kansas.
Will Schindler’s The Killing Choice, the second in his fantastic detective series, was featured in The Observer. The book has been receiving some fantastic coverage recently, having also been picked as The Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month for February.
There has been some fantastic bestseller news this week too, with MM authors continuing to make their presence felt in so many lists.
Ella Carey’s House by the Lake was top of the Amazon charts in Australia and Canada, and hit number 5 in the US over the weekend.
This time slip novel is the second in Ella’s bestselling Secrets of Paris trilogy, and is being re-published along with her five other backlist titles by Bookouture. Her new novel, A New York Secret, is published in March.
Ashely Audrain’s debut The Push continues to shine. It hit 89 on the hardback list on Amazon, and 43 in the ebook list.
The Discovery of Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel went into the Sunday Times paperback chart with just three days of sales. The title has also been picked by the Richard and Judy Book Cub as one of their Spring 2021 reads.
Wintering by Katherine May, with its lyrical and timely look at how to harness the periods of life that feel barren, bleak and frozen, remains in the US Indie Bestseller list at No. 11. The book has been at home on this list for multiple weeks now, following a prolonged period in the New York Times bestseller list too.
C. L. Taylor dominated the Top 10 Australian Audiobook charts, with Sleep topping the chart, followed closely by Strangers at No. 3, and The Accident at No. 8.
We are looking forward to the publication of CL Taylor’s latest book, Her Last Holiday is published in April this year – pre-order your copy here.
In other publication news, Penguin Random House / Michael Joseph will publish Rebecca Netley’s terrifying ghost story, The Whistling, in October 2021. You can read more about it here.
And on the theme of chilling tales, we recently received this sampler of The Haunting Season, an anthology that our author Elizabeth Macneal has contributed to. Elizabeth is in exciting company alongside the likes of Bridget Collins, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Laura Purcell and more! Publication is set for October 2021, so you’ll be all set for Halloween.
We were also very excited to see that Emma Stonex’s The Lamplighters is now available to pre-order on Audible.
Over 100,000 copies of Fiona Valpy‘s The Skylark’s Secret have been sold. Congratulations Fiona!
We’ve also had some fantastic news from our International Rights Team, who have gone from success to success. Here’s what the team closed this week:
Turkish rights to The Push by Ashley Audrian has gone to Pegasus
Bulgarian rights to Do No Harm by Jack Jordan has gone to Millenium
Hungarian rights to The French House by Jacquie Bloese have sold to General Press
Polish rights to Her Last Holiday and a second book by C. L. Taylor have sold to Albatros
Russian rights to Womb by Leah Hazard have sold to AST
Romanian rights to Wintering by Katherine May have gone to Nemira in a pre-empt
Swedish rights to Wintering by Katherine May have gone to Your Life Books. Wintering has now sold in a spectacular 18 territories.
And to round off this post, we have marked the end of our inaugural Mentorship programme with a news post celebrating our incredible mentees. Each mentee has been offered representation by an MM agent, so the programme may have ended, but six wonderful authors have now joined our agency.
