There is a definite sense of Spring in the air here at the MM Agency, but it’s not just the sun which is shining: MM authors continue to soar, radiating success, recognition and so much more. Let us bask in their achievements for this week!

The much-awaited fourth instalment of Caroline Mitchell’s DI Amy Winters series has finally arrived. Caroline’s Flesh and Blood was published yesterday with Amazon Publishing/Thomas & Mercer and we can’t wait for fans to dive back into the world of DI Amy Winter with this gripping new novel.

When a wave of mysterious apparent suicides hits a string of seaside resorts, DI Amy Winter suspects there may be more than mere coincidence to these tragic deaths. In her toughest investigation yet, Amy must confront her dark past if she is to put an end to the carnage.

Jen Carney and Katie Kirby recently celebrated the launch of their new books at an event with Author’s Aloud, a company that specialises in arranging for authors to visit schools and libraries in the UK and abroad. Jen and Katie sat down with children’s librarian of 30 years, Annie Everall, to speak more about their debut titles, The Accidental Diary of B.U.G and The Extremely Embarrassing Life of Lottie Brooks respectively. Spalding Books, a provider of library books to schools, sold signed bookplate copies of both titles in support of the event.

Nikki May’s upcoming novel Wahala, soon to be published by Doublday/Penguin Random House in the UK and Custom House/HarperCollins in the US, has been optioned for a TV series. BBC Studios-backed drama production house, Firebird Pictures, won the rights in a competitive auction this week. BBC Commissioning Editor Elizabeth Kilgarriff is extremely excited to take on the project, commenting: “Being entrusted by Nikki to bring the wonderful WAHALA to screen is a huge privilege.  Putting female friendship under the spotlight and featuring real, funny and refreshingly imperfect women, Nikki has created a story that is both utterly relatable and fantastically epic – everything you could want to make standout, thrilling and entertaining drama with plenty to say about our lives today”.

Emma Stonex’s The Lamplighters has gone from strength to strength, hitting No. 10 on the Sunday Times bestseller chart! With the reopening of bookshops (hooray!), last week a whopping 1,787 copies went through the tills, and with the lifting of lockdown we’re so excited to see The Lamplighters trending again amongst those who have made the long-awaited trip to a bookshop.

In some exciting international bestseller news, Ashley Audrain’s The Push is making a splash in Portugal, reaching No.5 on the Wook bestseller list (the largest online bookstore in Portugal) and No.7 on the Fnac bestseller list.

Alexandra Wilson, author of In Black and White, was also recently featured in The Guardian. Her new book follows her experiences as a young mixed-race barrister, and in this article for The Guardian she writes about her experience of being mistaken for a defendant three times in one day at a courthouse and how she remains determined to tackle racism in Britain’s legal system. Check out the full article here.

Be sure to tune in to her interview next week Thursday on Good Morning Britain, where she’ll be celebrating the paperback publication of her book!

In other news, Ava Glass’ new thriller Alias Emma, has been snapped up by Century/Penguin Random House UK in a two-book deal for UK and Commonwealth rights. North American rights have been sold to Ballantine/Penguin Random House US, with an additional five international deals for  German, Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese (EU) rights.

Ava Glass is a pseudonym for bestselling thriller writer Christi Daugherty; her internationally bestselling YA series, titled Nightschool, sold half a million copies in the UK and was the third bestselling YA book in the UK, the year of its publication.  

Alias Emma follows a young female spy, Emma Makepeace, who must covertly travel across one of the world’s most watched cities to bring the reluctant son of Russian spies into protective custody. With London’s famous Ring of Steel hacked by the Russian government, the two must cross the city without being seen by the thousands of CCTV cameras that document everything on the streets. With a 12 hour time-limit chasing them, Emma must use every ounce of her wit and skills of disguise and espionage if she hopes to survive. You can read the full details here.

Katherine Faulkner’s debut novel Greenwich Park, which was published last week, was recently reviewed in The Guardian, as part of their Best Recent Thrillers Roundup. The reviewer comments: “With multiple narrators and italicised inserts detailing a secret sexual tryst in the eponymous green space, this is a tense, pacy read.”

Speaking of debut thrillers, Stephanie Wrobel’s Sunday Times bestselling novel, The Recovery of Gold Rose (Michael Joseph/Penguin Random House), was recently featured on Indigo.com (Canada’s biggest bookstore) as part of their Top Ten Thrillers List.  Since being published last year, Rose Gold has been nominated for a Barry First Novel Award and has been consistently present on the Amazon bestseller charts for Women’s Crime Fiction and Psychological Literary Fiction, as well as being in the Top 20 Bestselling Paperbacks across Penguin Random House.

C.J. Tudor’s terrifying new horror The Burning Girls has also been a bookstore favourite recently; Kinokuniya, one of the biggest book chains in Asia, showed some in-store love for C.J’s new title from their Singapore account.

Remigiusz Mróz’s books have been receiving a lot of attention recently, as he has been named the top most popular author in Poland in 2021, carrying on the title from 2020. While Remigiusz Mróz holds on to first place, he is followed by Olga Tokarczuk, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, and Stephen King. Read all about it here.

In IRD news:

Serbian rights for The Joy of Being Selfish by Michelle Elman have sold to Publik

Polish rights to The Other Husband by Kathryn Croft have sold to Slowne (who used to be called Burda)