Tag Archives: Crime Writers’ Association.

A PUBLISHER’S YEAR: OCTOBER – AWARDS, ASSOCIATIONS AND AUDIOBOOKS

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Hello and welcome to the next Sapere Books instalment! Lots of exciting things have happened over the past few months. In August I worked with Simon and Schuster’s Sara-Jade Virtue to judge the RNA’s annual Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers. The books we read were all very different and very worthy nominees, but luckily we were unanimous with our winner: The Lost Village by Lorna Cook.

September also saw the whole Sapere Books team attend the Independent Publishers Guild Autumn Conference. The IPG has a wealth of resources for publishers and arranged fantastic talks for the conference. One area it has led us to mull over is audiobook publishing. We have come to the conclusion that it is too expensive for us to experiment with at the moment, but we will certainly be pitching all of our books to audio publishers both in the UK and the US to try and secure publishing deals. We did actually get approached by Tantor Media last month, and we have sold the audio rights to them for the first three books in J C Briggs Charles Dickens Investigations series, which is exciting!

At the beginning of this month we hosted one of our semi-annual author meet-ups. It is lovely to spend some time with our authors face to face, and to encourage all our authors to get to know one another. Everyone is spread out all over the country, and not all of them belong to genre-specific groups like the RNA and CWA, so it feels good to have informal catch ups to discuss industry news, writing projects – and life in general!

Last week the team attended the Crime Writers’ Association Gala Dinner, which happens every year to reveal the winners of their prestigious Dagger Awards. We are the current sponsor of their Historical Dagger, which had already been whittled down to six fantastic books, but I have to say S G MacLean was a very worthy winner for her third Seeker novel, Destroying Angel.

We also have some exciting company news to share. If you have been following these blog posts, you will know that we had been actively looking to sign up some historical nautical fiction. Well, I can know officially announce that we have signed Justin Fox, represented by the Aoife Lennon-Ritchie to our list. Justin is working on a series of novels set in the second world war around the South African Cape, and we hope to publish the first one next year.

As always, we’ve been busy publishing lots of fantastic books. New series we have launched include the Inspector James Given series by Charlie Garratt – traditional English murder mysteries set in the lead up to the Second World War; the DI Jemima Huxley series by Gaynor Torrance – a troubled female detective struggling to stay sane while solving complex murder cases; and the DS Hunter Kerr Investigations by Michael Fowler – a crime team solving serial killer cases in Yorkshire. We’ve also launched two psychological thrillers by Gillian Jackson – ABDUCTION and SNATCHED – which are receiving fantastic reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

We also focussed on publishing more ‘backlist’ titles. We recently signed up Dorothy Mack’s Regency romance backlist, which were first published in the 1980s/90s. The first one, THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDE is selling particularly well at the moment. And we have just starting reissuing Alan Williams’ historical thrillers, with his Cold War espionage novel, GENTLEMAN TRAITOR, out this month.

Amy

 

A PUBLISHER’S YEAR: FEBRUARY – ROMANCE, CRIME, APPLICATIONS

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To pick up on the cliffhanger of last month – the exciting Romantic Novelists’ Association news is now public! They are running a new prize from this year, which we have agreed to sponsor. It is officially called the Sapere Books Popular Romantic Fiction Award. The shortlist of six books has been announced. In the running are THE LION TAMER WHO LOST by Louise Beech, ONE THOUSAND STARS AND YOU by Isabelle Broom, YOU ME EVERYTHING by Catherine Isaac, THIS COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING by Jill Mansell and A SKY PAINTED GOLD by Laura Wood. I do have a personal favourite but my lips are sealed until the winner is announced on March 4th!

We are still looking for our first staff-member. Applications are just about closed but we have well over 100 to go through, so that will keep us busy for the next few weeks! We’ve also had our first responses to our ‘Call For Nautical Fiction’ and it looks like we’ll be able to announce some naval fiction deals soon. We have just finalised our schedule for London Book Fair and we are pretty booked up for all three days, plus some evening events so that will be a full-on week for us!

The published titles for this month were a mix of genres. We published Valerie Holmes’ second Regency romance novel in her Yorkshire Saga just in time for Valentines Day. We’ve also published one of our first non-fiction titles: a ‘deadly’ history of the Thames in London by Irish author, Anthony Galvin. That was followed by two classic mysteries: THE PAINTED FACE by Jean Stubbs and STEP IN THE DARK by Elizabeth Lemarchand. Finally, we launched two action-packed thrillers: David Beckler’s debut, BROTHERHOOD, set in urban Manchester and John Matthews’ thought-provoking gun-control thriller, THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

Our final piece of news is that we will be going to CrimeFest this year for the first time, which we are thrilled about. Last year we went ‘on tour’ to cover the Crime Writers’ Association Conference in Shrewsbury and the Historical Novelists’ Conference in Cumbernauld, and to contribute to a writing panel in Chorley. We aren’t actually speaking at CrimeFest so it will be fun to just enjoy all the talks, dress up for the Gala dinner and of course, hang out at the bar 😊. We should find out the longlist for the Sapere Books Historical Dagger Award as well, which is very exciting.

Come back next month for our Book Fair news, March releases, RNA award announcements and potentially a hello from our new Editorial Assistant!

Amy Durant

 

 

Twisted by B A Morton Reviewed by Margaret Graham

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Twisted by B A Morton reviewed by Margaret Graham

Blimey, talk about tense …

In Twisted, Jack Miller’s been playing a dangerous game, and the stakes are about to be raised.

I read the first few lines and was hooked.

Poor old DI John Samuels is on the trail of a bank robber, but he has no idea of the people he’s dealing with. In particular, let me introduce you to Spook, who is one of the most balmy and evil characters I’ve come across. How on earth did B A Morton conjure her up, let alone all the others. You see, so few are conventionally good people, but they’re so interesting. I was totally engrossed, and found myself – understanding? Well no, not understanding why they were as they were, but close to that.

The pace, the story, the characters are all spot on. So, let’s get back to the book: the ruthless robber is Miller, for whom bank robbery is simply a means to an end. Wounded while making his escape Miller has half a million in used notes and a hostage that wasn’t part of the plan. As the police close in, Otto, the crime boss wants his cash, and someone wants Miller silenced  – forever.

Then there’s the weird misfit Spook. Unstable and fearless, she’ll go to any lengths to get what she wants. Then a judge’s daughter disappears and evidence points at Miller. It is then that Miller discovers just how crazy Spook really is. (Ah ha, but I knew it all along, so very there).  With every twist and turn, and even with the rapid pace, Morton keeps us with her.

Published by Caffeine Nights, Twisted surely lends itself to a series. I do hope so.

B A Morton lives in the North East of England, and writes across a number of genres, including crime, romance, horror and historical fiction. She lives in a cottage built on the remains of a medieval chapel.

She is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association. In 2011 her debut novel, Mrs Jones, a crime thriller set in New York, took second place in the international literary competition, The Yeovil Prize, and launched her extremely successful career.