Martina Cole's autumn novel pushed back to 2019

Martina Cole’s forthcoming book for the autumn No Mercy (Headline) has been pushed back to October 2019, meaning this autumn will be the first in nearly 20 years not to carry a new novel from the bestselling crime writer.

No Mercy had been slated for publication on this year's "Super Thursday" (4th October), but the publication date has since been moved to 3rd October 2019. Her agent Darley Anderson said: "Martina needs longer to write this new novel. That’s all."

A spokesperson for Cole said delivery this year was not possible for "unforeseen personal circumstances", pointing out that, in the course of 26 years, it is only the second time ever that there has been a delay to Cole's annual publication. In the meantime, a 25th anniversary hardback edition of her 1993 novel Lady Killer will be out in November.

Cole, who through Nielsen BookScan’s TCM has sold 9.6 million books for £65.8m to date, has published a new book every year since 1999, racking up an Original Fiction number one hit every autumn since 2001 with the exception of just three years.

On average Cole's books sell in the region of 100,000 copies for £1m per hardback; last year’s Damaged hardback sold 97,268 copies for £977,264 after its release on 19th September while, in 2016, Betrayal sold 114,357 copies for £1.16m and 2015’s Get Even sold 116,176 for £1.09m.

Still publishing on Super Thursday are Liane Moriarty's Nine Perfect Strangers (Penguin), her first novel post-Big Little Lies, Peter James' stand-alone novel Absolute Proof (Pan Macmillan), Ian Rankin's House of Lies (Orion) and Graham Norton's second book A Keeper (Coronet).