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Three debuts championed in R&J autumn book club
Three debuts have made it onto the WH Smith Richard and Judy Book Club line-up for autumn 2016, with half of the list published by Penguin Random House (PRH) imprints.
Debut books set to be championed in the autumn book club batch are Fiona Barton’s The Widow (Corgi, PRH), about a woman whose husband has just died after being accused of committing a crime, Sharon Guskin’s The Forgetting Time, a “captivating, thought-provoking” novel which centres around a four-year-old boy (Pan Macmillan), and Katarina Bivald’s The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend (Vintage, PRH), about a Swedish woman who moves to America and opens a bookshop in her dead friend’s honour.
The other titles selected for promotion in the book club over the next three months are Missing, Presumed, by Susie Steiner (The Borough Press, HarperCollins) Circling The Sun, by Paula McLain (Fleet, Little, Brown, Hachette), The Loving Husband, by Christobel Kent (Sphere, Hachette), Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz (Penguin, PRH) and The Ballroom by Anna Hope (Black Swan, PRH).
Of the latter title, Richard Madeley said: “Put Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne into a blender. Add one drop of nitro-glycerine and three of sulphuric acid. Switch on, and don’t be surprised if the lid blows off. You’ve just mixed your first Orphan X.”
Four out of the eight titles are published by Penguin Random House imprints.
Exclusive editions of the titles will be stocked by WHS, containing extra content targeted and book clubs and reading groups, including author Q&As, recommended reads and questions for discussion. The Book Club podcasts remain “integral” to the promotion, WHS said, and have so far notched up 2m downloads of all the combined episodes, which feature insightful interviews between the authors and Richard and Judy. Chocolate retailer Thorntons has also been brought on board as a new sponsor of the book club.
Judy Finnigan said: “Richard and I have thoroughly enjoyed spending the summer reading and selecting this latest list. We’re absolutely thrilled to showcase such amazing talent, once again, from bestselling authors to three fantastic debut authors. We sincerely hope everyone enjoys each and every one of these books as much as we have.”
Jackie Coppleton’s A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (Windmill Books), has also been revealed as the winning title of the readers’ vote for the summer 2016 book club selection.
