ROY GRACE TAKES THE BESTSELLER LISTS BY STORM: DEAD IF YOU DON’T REACHES NUMBER ONE

Internationally acclaimed author Peter James has his thirteenth consecutive number one as the latest novel in his riveting Roy Grace series, DEAD IF YOU DON’T, shot to the top of the bestseller lists in its first week of sales. DEAD IF YOU DON’T was published in hardback and ebook by Pan Macmillan on 17 May. The launch was held at the Amex Brighton and Hove Football stadium, a fitting location, as the novel begins right there… In Heat magazine, Isabelle Broom praised DEAD IF YOU DON’T as ‘a galloping riot of entertainment and action’ and it grips from the very first pages.

Kipp Brown, successful businessman and compulsive gambler, is having the worst run of luck of his life. He’s beginning to lose, big style. However, taking his teenage son, Mungo, to their club’s Saturday afternoon football match should have given him a welcome respite, if only for a few hours. But it’s at the stadium where his nightmare begins. Within minutes of arriving at the game, Kipp bumps into a client. He takes his eye off Mungo for a few moments, and in that time, the boy disappears. Then he gets the terrifying message that someone has his child, and to get him back alive, Kipp will have to pay.

Defying instructions not to contact the police, Kipp reluctantly does just that, and Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is brought in to investigate. At first it seems a straightforward case of kidnap. But rapidly Grace finds himself entering a dark, criminal underbelly of the city, where the rules are different and nothing is what it seems . . .

Peter was a guest on various radios shows in the run up to the publication of DEAD IF YOU DON’T and appeared on London Live TV’s arts news programme to discuss his new novel and his time out with the Met. He was a featured author for this year’s Crimefest and visited Waterstones on Jersey’s Queen Street to talk about DEAD IF YOU DON’T in conversation with BBC presenter Cathy Le Feuvre. He’ll be appearing at the Jersey Festival in September, among other festivals in the year ahead. Visit The Bookseller’s Pictures of the Week to see Peter hosting booksellers in Brighton ahead of the DEAD IF YOU DON’T launch.

DEAD IF YOU DON’T has already been snapped up in Russia by Eksmo and Minerva in Finland. Rights to Peter’s riveting thriller ABSOLUTE PROOF, in which a mysterious phone call pulls an investigative journalist into the search to find proof of God’s existence, have also been bought by international publishers. ABSOLUTE PROOF is set to be published by Macmillan in October, with a major campaign. Fans of Peter James can look forward to more compelling Roy Grace cases as Pan Macmillan have also acquired rights for three further titles.

Peter James is one of the UK’s most treasured crime and thriller novelists. He has won numerous awards for his gripping crime novels, including the coveted 2016 CWA Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence, and an Honorary Platinum Award at the Specsavers Bestseller Awards, powered by Nielsen Book.  He was publicly voted by WH Smith – Britain's biggest book selling chain – The Best Crime Author of All Time. The Roy Grace detective novels have sold over 19 million copies worldwide and are now published in 37 territories. His last Roy Grace NEED YOU DEAD went straight in at No. 1 in the paperback bestseller charts in October 2017 and stayed in the top 10 for nine weeks. Many of his books have also been adapted for the stage, with his standalone chiller THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL up next in 2019 – see more and book here!

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Praise for DEAD IF YOU DON’T:

‘Chief superintendent Roy Grace is back – and we think this could be his most exciting storyline yet…a galloping riot of entertainment and action, with heaps of dark humour thrown in.’ — Isabelle Broom, Heat

‘As ever, James may be dealing with familiar material, but always manages to render it afresh, his narrative (here involving the kidnapped son of a successful businessman) is made tauter by the adroit characterisation of the principal participants.’ — Barry Forshaw, Crime Time

‘I love the Roy Grace series of books and have read every single one of them…I loved the storyline…It’s absolutely wonderful to have Roy Grace back and is like welcoming back an old friend! …it is fantastic when the action is forefront as it is so cleverly written.  The plot was well researched and well described and it was nail-bitingly filled with suspense and tension! I completely and utterly loved it.  It is Roy Grace and, of course, Peter James at his best.  It had me hooked from page one to the very end.  Highly, highly recommended!  Roll on Roy for book number 15!’ — Stardust Book Reviews

Gregory Evans’ SHIRLEYMANDER playing at the Playground Theatre

Staged in the newly opened Playground Theatre, barely a stone's throw from Grenfell Tower, SHIRLEYMANDER tells the story of the central London Council, which, thirty years ago, was at the centre of a major scandal. Westminster Council, under Porter's bullying, autocratic style, was led into a mire of paranoia, fear and skulduggery as it pursued secret, illegal policies that destroyed communities, reputations, lives, hopes... and finally Porter herself. Exploring perennial themes of greed, ambition and the normalisation of corruption, SHIRLEYMANDER is a shocking, funny and moving reminder of how it is the weakest who bear the brunt when institutional wrong-doing takes control, and has been programmed to coincide with the anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Inspired by BBC journalist Andrew Hosken's book Nothing Like A Dame, Gregory Evans'  docudrama  opened on 23rd May to admiration from the national press:

‘Gregory Evans’s fascinating play looks likely to put west London’s splendid newish fringe theatre, The Playground, on the map’ The Telegraph

‘undeniably entertaining’ The Independent

‘ nimble multitasking by Jack Klaff ...  Jessica Martin is immaculate, eerily beady’  The Guardian

‘Evans rehearses the story in a way that is brisk, informative and enlightening’ Michael Billington

The production plays until June 16th, and tickets can be bought here: https://theplaygroundtheatre.london/events/shirleymander/

IAN BIRCH’S BOOK OF REVOLUTIONARY MAGAZINE COVERS, UNCOVERED, ACQUIRED BY OCTOPUS.

UNCOVERED: Revolutionary Magazine Covers - The Inside Stories Told By The People Who Made Them by former Editorial Director of Hearst, Ian Birch, has been acquired by Cassell (part of the Octopus Publishing Group). The book is being published at Octopus by Joe Cottington, Commissioning Editor, with world rights acquired in all languages from Juliet Pickering. The book will be released in hardback on 4 October 2018.

UNCOVERED is an oral history of the stories behind the most ground-breaking and controversial magazine covers ever published, as told by the people who created them. Compiled by industry veteran Ian Birch, UNCOVERED gathers together the insights of the magazine world's most important figures, including high-profile editors, creative directors, photographers, artists and cover stars.

Featuring compelling and shocking covers from Vogue, Life, Esquire, The New Yorker, i-D, The Face, Private Eye, Time, Rolling Stone and many more, covering issues as varied as the civil rights movement and Vietnam war to the Trump presidency and Brexit debate, this is a unique social document celebrating and chronicling the art of magazine design.

Joe Cottington said of the acquisition, ‘UNCOVERED is more than just a book of magazine covers. Ian has used his incredible industry contacts to speak to the key people behind each cover – to get the real, fascinating stories of what happened behind the scenes, directly from people who were there. It makes the book both a beautiful visual record and a compelling social history. We’re delighted to be publishing it with Ian.’

Ian Birch comments, ‘It’s been a pleasure to work with Joe and everyone at Octopus, and a privilege to talk to the magazine industry’s most ground-breaking creatives. They produced covers that took risks, challenged conventions and, most importantly, triggered debate.’

Ian Birch is former Editorial Director of Hearst and Emap. He began his magazine career in the mid ‘70s as a writer/reporter on Time Out before focusing on music first at Melody Maker and then Smash Hits, where he was assistant editor for three years from 1984. His first launch and editorship came in the late ‘80s with Sky magazine; he then edited Us magazine for Jann Wenner in New York. He became Editorial Director at Emap in the early ‘90s, where, over the next 10 years, he helped to launch Red, Closer, Grazia and re-launch Heat. Birch then moved back to New York to become Chief Content Officer at TV Guide before joining Hearst as an Editorial Director working in both America and Britain on brands like Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Men's Health and Good Housekeeping.

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Pre-order your copy of UNCOVERED here.

THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS BY EDWARD WILSON-LEE OUT NOW

Discover the vibrant life of Hernando Colón, Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son in Edward Wilson-Lee’s illuminating new biography THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS out now from William Collins in hardback, ebook and audio. Helen Castor called it ‘a thought-provoking exploration of the ways in which we acquire, organise and retrieve information about the world and our place in it.’  In Literary Review Felipe Fernández-Armesto described the book as ‘a fascinating and beautifully written account of how Hernando conceived and assembled his library is set within a highly original biography of the compiler. It’s a work of imagination restrained by respect for evidence, of brilliance suitably alloyed by erudition, and of scholarship enlivened by sensitivity and acuity.’ You can also read Alison Flood’s Guardian feature on Edward and the book here

Without libraries, who are we? We have no past, and no future… This fascinating book tells for the first time in English the story of the first great universal library in the age of printing — and of the illegitimate son of Christopher Colombus who created it. Hernando Colón spent his life trying to build the first universal library of print: personally scouring bookshops in an attempt to acquire a copy of every book, he brought them back to his library in Seville, where he drove himself mad attempting to devise how best to navigate and organise the world of print.

Hernando lived in extraordinary times. He knew Erasmus, Dürer and Thomas More, was at the forefront in the first international conference to determine the circumference of the world, led the team that created the first world map on scientific principles — and invented the modern bookcase!

Hernando’s life placed him at the centre of the ages of exploration, print, and the Reformation: he spent a year living with his father marooned aboard a shipwrecked hull off Jamaica and wrote the first biography of Columbus. To reconstruct his life is not only to recover a vision of the Renaissance world, but also to appreciate the passions and intrigues that lie beneath our own disciplined attempts to b ring order to the world. THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS is an unforgettable journey through these layered realities — and a bibliophile’s dream!

Last night saw the launch of THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS in the beautiful Wren Library in Cambridge. Home to over 700,000 books printed before the 1820s, medieval manuscripts and archives, the Wren Library was the perfect location to launch the captivating biography of a man who dedicated his life to the collection of books. Edward will be appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book programme on Sunday 20 May to talk about Hernando’s library.

Rights to THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS have been sold internationally in France, Spain, Germany, Japan and Italy, with more international news to come shortly!

Edward Wilson-Lee is a Fellow in English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he teaches medieval and Renaissance literature and Shakespeare. After growing up in Kenya and Switzerland, he went to university in London, New York, Oxford and Cambridge, living briefly in Mexico and New Orleans in between.

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Praise for THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS:

‘Edward Wilson-Lee’s fascinating and beautifully written account of how Hernando conceived and assembled his library is set within a highly original biography of the compiler. It’s a work of imagination restrained by respect for evidence, of brilliance suitably alloyed by erudition, and of scholarship enlivened by sensitivity and acuity. … The ‘library that would collect everything’ became, as it grew unmanageably, a Borgesian labyrinth of ‘baffling marvels’. Wilson-Lee describes it with verve and strews his account with Rabelaisian lists, incantatory and almost magical in effect, of the sort Hernando loved.’ — Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Literary Review

‘Hernando Columbus deserves to be as famous as his father, Christopher…Wilson-Lee’s greatest strength is the subtlety with which Hernando’s public life as a courtier and his private life as a collector are interwoven. Unless you like libraries a lot then the most important thing about Hernando is not the most interesting. But in these elegantly handled parallels, Wilson-Lee leads us almost by stealth to an understanding of his subject’s greatest achievement.’ — Dennis Duncan, Spectator

'T‎his is a remarkable and deeply absorbing book – both a vivid account of the extraordinary life of Hernando Colón, younger son of Christopher Columbus, and a thought-provoking exploration of the ways in which we acquire, organise and retrieve information about the world and our place in it. THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS is minutely-researched history that reads like fiction – at once hauntingly redolent of Eco and Borges, and sharply relevant in our data-driven age.' — Helen Castor, author of SHE-WOLVES: THE WOMEN WHO RULED ENGLAND BEFORE ELIZABETH

‘Edward Wilson-Lee’s terrific new book brings to life Christopher Columbus’s son Hernando, his quirky and dazzling library, and the complex worlds between which he lived. THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS eloquently captures the life of an extraordinary man, while making his era resonate with our own: it is about how we seek to organise our minds and our lives, and, above all, about why books continue to matter.’ — Joe Moshenska, author of A STAIN IN THE BLOOD

VISIT THE ENCHANTING VILLA NARANJA IN SHEILA O’FLANAGAN’S NEW NOVEL THE HIDEAWAY!

Be transported to warmer climes in Sheila O’Flanagan’s engaging new novel, THE HIDEAWAY, published today in hardback and ebook by Headline. Set against the picturesque backdrop of Villa Naranja in Spain, THE HIDEAWAY follows Juno Ryan as she tries to recover from the heartbreak she left at home. Bookends Book of the Month for May, THE HIDEAWAY is the perfect addition to any holiday-maker’s suitcase this summer! The Sunday Mirror called it ‘a hugely enjoyable romance, written with pace and heart. It will make you long to jump on a plane yourself.’

What would you do if you discovered you were living a lie?

When a shocking news report shatters Juno Ryan's world, she suddenly finds herself without the man she loves - and with no way of getting the answers she so desperately needs.

A distraught Juno flees to the enchanting Villa Naranja in Spain. The blue skies and bountiful orange groves – along with Pep, the winemaker's handsome son – begin to soothe her broken heart, but only Juno herself can mend it.

Just when she begins to feel whole again another bombshell falls. Can Juno put the past behind her? And will she ever learn to trust herself again?

Internationally, new translating publishers have recently acquired Sheila’s titles, with new publications and deals in markets including Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Russia, the Czech Republic and Italy. Sheila’s last novel WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT took the UK and Irish bestseller lists by storm, reaching Number 2 in Ireland and Number 9 in the UK in its first week of sales. Fans can expect two more captivating reads from Sheila in 2019 and 2020, after Sheila signed a two-book deal with Headline in February.

SHIELD OF LIES, the second novel in Sheila’s exhilarating Young Adult fantasy series, THE CRYSTAL RUN, was published by Hachette Children’s Books in paperback and ebook on March 8. 

Sheila O’Flanagan is the author of twenty-five thought-provoking, gripping and unforgettable Sunday Times and ebook bestsellers, including THE MISSING WIFE which was published in the US in February by Grand Central following its UK success. It became a Sunday Times and Irish Times paperback bestseller in 2017, as well as becoming a No.1 ebook bestseller, and one of Amazon’s Top Ten Bestselling ebooks of the year. Her interlinked short story collection CHRISTMAS WITH YOU reached No. 2 in the Irish bestseller lists in the run up to Christmas. Headline has sold over 7 million copies of Sheila’s books.

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Praise for Sheila O’Flanagan:

‘O'Flanagan is one of our best-known, best-loved and most prolific women's fiction authors’ — Irish Independent

‘O'Flanagan's writing is crisp and concise and her plotting deft’ — Belfast Telegraph

'One of our best storytellers' — Irish Mail on Sunday

‘Another fantastic read from Sheila O’Flanagan.’ — Bella Magazine

‘A spectacular read.’ — Heat