I received some promotional postcards today from Plainpicture.com, and one of them looks like this: It has got me thinking about that last page in a novel: how an author must feel reaching the end of their 100,000 word manuscript; how long they may have spent thinking about those last words on the page; how […]
After reading this article from New York Magazine recently, ‘Why I Despise The Great Gatsby‘, I started thinking about the topic of ‘great literary classics you secretly can’t stand’ and our reluctance to admit to them. It seems to be something of a literary taboo – confessing which novels, whether from centuries ago or those […]
Mary Nichols’ books, The Summer House andThe Girl on the Beach have interestingly been very popular in Hungary. And now we’ve just recently sold rights to The Kirilov Star. The cover design to a foreign edition can look extremely different to the UK version, and more often than not wouldn’t appeal to a UK market […]
The past few years have seen an explosion in the ‘scandi-crime’ phenomenon, as the rest of the world discovered some top-notch crime novels and television drama coming out of the frozen north. Hands up anyone who’s lost a weekend in front of a box-set of The Killing, Bergen or The Bridge? Or have followed the […]
It’s the first Monday morning in June, and lo and behold the sun is finally out! And what’s more, we all have the opportunity to be extremely British by talking too much about the weather. Will it last? Is summer finally here? Or is the sunshine merely plotting to lull us into a false sense […]
On Monday evening I was having a nice run around Tooting Bec common; the sun was shining, the weather was warm-ish, and people were basking in the lush green surroundings. All was going well until I tripped up. Not a little scuffle, but a full blown arms splayed and landing spread-eagled on the ground kind […]
It’s not all that often that a new book will permeate the general culture so much that the characters’ names become common parlance or the newspapers will borrow plot twists to illustrate their point. I know when a book has hit the big time when my dearly beloved, but not-precisely-a-bookworm other half knows anything about […]
The new Lake District mystery by Martin Edwards, The Frozen Shroud, will be out in June and advance copies came in the other day. We originally started printing this series with matte covers but gave the last book, The Hanging Wood a glossy finish instead to make the yellow tone more vibrant and eye-catching. It […]
Thursday 20th June, 7.30pm Women’s Institute, ODDINGTON A&B’s Rebecca Tope, author of the cosy crime books, Shadows in the Cotswolds and The Windermere Witness, will be chatting about her life at the Women’s Institute, The Village Hall, GL56 0UR. As well as speaking about her career as a successful writer, Rebecca will be selling some […]
If you’re a book lover who lives in or near London, you may already know that the London Literature Festival is currently underway. Taking place on the South Bank, this annual celebration of all things literary offers a huge array of events to keep bookworms busy. One that’s particularly caught my eye is London Lines, […]
I had a very excited email last week from a friend telling me she’d finished her novel. I paused for a second and thought, what an astonishing sentence. We studied literature and creative writing together at university and she went on to do a Masters in the latter at Oxford. Now at the young age […]
Saturday 22nd June, 10am – 6pm, UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER Crime writer extraordinaire Adrian Magson will be attending the Winchester Writer’s Conference, Sparkford Road Winchester, SO22 4NR. He will be giving lectures including ‘How to Get a Literary Agent’ in discussion with his own agent, David Headley as well as ‘It’s the Seconds that Count’ discussing […]
The description ‘larger than life’ is one of those potential jellyfish, back-handed compliments that I know I wouldn’t be all that enthused to receive. But it’s a phrase we used in the blurb for one of our books in the past year, and is aptly applied to the character of Shakespeare’s Falstaff. Not only does […]
During the Fall of Night Book Tour, after Rachel Caine had finished signing books for fans at Waterstones in Bournemouth, I was admiring the cover to A Delicate Truth, by John le Carré (with its embossed gold foil) and chatting to the manager about how much effort is going into hardbacks now. Gone are the […]
Last week I found a treasure I didn’t even know had been written. Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Prisoner of Heaven from his series set in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in 19th century Barcelona. I read the first two in the series, The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game about six years ago […]
The other week I attended my first literary awards bash – the Clarke Award, one of Britain’s most prestigious award for Science Fiction novels, set up with a grant from Arthur C Clarke. It was held at the Royal Society and open to the public for, I think, the first time this year. After a […]
I’m heading off to San Francisco tomorrow morning (I know, lucky me) and whilst this holiday has been in the pipeline for some time, what with the excitement of the Fall of Night Book Tour which has seen me travelling around the country with Rachel Caine (author of the Morganville Vampires series) this San Fran […]
Thursday 13th June, 7:30pm BURFORD LIBRARY Meet crime writer extraordinaire Rebecca Tope at the Burford Literary Festival. Rebecca is the author of three successful crimes series including the Cotswolds Mysteries, such as Shadows in the Cotswolds, and the West Country Mysteries. She will be discussing her life as a writer and her latest books at […]
We seem to have had a pretty good year for publishing. Despite the tricky times on the high street, 2012 saw positive growth in both digital and print markets, and it wasn’t all EL James making a splash. Hilary Mantell’s critically lauded Bring up the Bodies has now attained incredible popular reach currently sitting at […]
Sometimes, after reading a book or manuscript, I can conjure up my own ideas of what could go (or could have gone) on the cover. And then there are other times where I wouldn’t know where to start. This, of course, is why our cover designs are left to our talented Art Editor, Christina… A […]
Thursday 6th June, 7:30pm STEYNING LIBRARY Join one of A&B’s best selling crime authors, Rebecca Tope as she chats about her career as a writer and her latest books, The Windermere Witness, Malice in the Cotswolds and the newest instalment, Shadows in the Cotswolds. Rebecca is currently the membership secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association […]