The Vanishing Of Katharina Linden IS A SUNDAY TIMES CHRISTMAS PICK
December 2009
Quote: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by newcomer Helen Grant (Puffin £6.99) starts with a bang, and dances its way exhilaratingly through a dark thriller about a girl investigating child disappearances in a small German town.
You can see what good company Helen Grant is keeping by reading the full article
here
Connolly Opens The Gates To Younger Readers
October 2009
John
Connolly's young adult debut The Gates is meeting with rave
reviews in both the UK and US.
In the modern classic - The Book of Lost Things
- John used the trappings of fairy tales to tell a dark story for adults
of a boy coping with World War II and the loss of his mother. Now with
The Gates he gives himself completely over
to the urge to write for younger readers, creating a slapstick modern
fantasy that mixes quantum physics with metaphysics.
An Amazon Top Book Of The Month - John Humphries also
revealed himself a fan when he interviewed John Connolly on the Today
program last week.
To listen again visit: listen:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/today/
The Rainbow Rise Of Cathy Cassidy
August 2009
Cathy
Cassidy's overall sales are now in excess of a million copies.
For the second year running Cathy ranks in the Top 50 Children's Book
Authors.
It's an exciting year for the bestselling writer whose
eleventh book Angel Cakes hit the lists this year.
Cathy also launched her brand new Daizy Star series for 8-12
year olds this summer.
Watch this space!
Exciting Debut Author Longlisted For Teen Prize
July 2009
The
Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant has been Longlisted
for the Booktrust Teenage Prize. This is a fantastic achievement for
a début author and huge congratulations to Helen. Previous winners
include Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-time and Marcus Sedgwick's My Swordhand
is Singing. The shortlist will be
announced in September.
Copies flew off the shelves at a recent signing at the Treasure Trove
Bookshop in Belgium which Helen followed by a talk at a local school
where she led the discussion "How a book is born."
"An impressive debut from an author to watch."
- The Daily Mail
"An absolutely compelling tale" -The Times
"A remarkable novel" - The Independent
"An eerily subtle page-turner... wonderful."
- The Guardian
Q&a With Helen Grant
November 2009
How
has your first year as a published author been?
Hectic! We moved from Germany to Belgium a few months before The Vanishing
was published, so I was checking proofs at the same time as I was unpacking,
fighting my way through a new bureaucratic system and starting to learn
a new language. When The Vanishing was actually published,
I was in the middle of writing my second novel, The Glass Demon,
which is coming out in April 2010, and working up to my first year Dutch
exam. So it’s been a very busy time, but also incredibly exciting.
Since I was a child it has been my ambition to hold in my hand a book
with my name on the front, and now it’s finally happened!
For anyone who hasn’t yet read THE VANISHING, what can
they expect?
Lots of German culture, a mystery, and a very grisly denouement! I lived
in Bad Münstereifel, where the book is set, for seven wonderful
years. It’s a place with a long and fascinating history and simply
bursting with ghoulish legends, which I have woven into the story. I
didn’t need to make them up – I think it’s the most
haunted town on the planet!
What is one piece of advice you’d give to new authors?
Be very clear about what you want. There will be obstacles to overcome
– rejections, constructive criticism from your editors, revisions,
maybe disappointing reviews (though one hopes not!). It’s easier
to get over these if you always have your ultimate aim in mind, whether
it’s to publish one book, or get onto the bestseller list ten
times in a row. I talked to members of a writer’s group this year
about the publishing process, and one writer came up to me afterwards
and said that if that was what it was like, he felt he would be happier
writing for himself rather than trying to write commercially. It’s
okay to decide that! The main thing is to be clear-sighted about what
you want.
What books do you read when you are not writing?
I like Victorian literature – Trollope, Dickens, George Eliot
(The Mill on the Floss is one of my most re-read books). I
also read quite a lot of crime novels – I’m having a bit
of a craze on Scandinavian crime novels at the moment – and ghost
stories. When I’m getting towards the end of writing a novel and
my head is full of it, I often re-read old favourites rather than start
reading something new, which is just distracting.
And finally, what can we expect next from Helen Grant?
I’ve just started a third novel set in Germany, and I’m
very excited about that. Like my other German novels, it’s inspired
by historical events and local legends, in this case the witch trials
which took place in the sixteenth century. It’s a fascinating
but horrifying period of history.
In the longer term, I’d love to set a book in my new home of Flanders.
That’s still some way off - I’d like to be better at the
language (Flemish, a dialect of Dutch) first – but it’s
something I’d really like to do. It’s such a quirky place.
Santa Claus arrives by helicopter here and they have a pumpkin-weighing
contest every year – there has to be something to say about that!
CHECK OUT THE AUTHOR PAGE FOR MORE AUTHOR
Q&As
Six Figure Debut September 2009
September 2009
Huge
congratulations to Helen Grant, whose début novel The
Vanishing of Katharina Linden and her second book, The
Glass Demon, have been acquired in the US as an adult
title by Kate Miciak at Bantam Dell in a six-figure deal.
Hardback publication is scheduled for August 2010 - watch this space!
Korean Upsurge
July 2009
The Agency has received the highest ever advance from a Korean publisher for John Connolly's new stand-alone The Gates.
Munhakdongne, one of largest publishing companies in Korea, offered for the rights late last night. Their authors include Paulo Coelho, Cormac McCarthy and Ian McEwan. Danny Hong, our new Korean subagent, negotiated this deal and also sold Korean rights in Chris Mooney’s The Dead Room to Korea Price information in the few weeks he has been working with us.
Connolly's Kingdom
July 2009
Sales
continue to grow for John Connolly’s The
Lovers in its third week The Sunday Times hardback
bestseller fiction list. The Lovers is at
No9 having spend two weeks in the No4 slot but with sales ever increasing.
The Lovers remains at No1 on the Irish bestseller
list.
“The Lovers grabbed me by the
throat at page one and wouldn’t let go. John Connolly is simply
one of the best writers out there. Book after book, he writes with the
intensity of a mad man and the subtlety of a poet. If you haven’t
read one of his spine-tingling, masterfully-crafted novels, you’re
missing out on some truly great entertainment.” –Vince
Flynn