PREVIEWER’S PERSPECTIVE Previewer’s perspective
Mantel completes Cromwell trio while O’Farrell and Barry star
The literary event of the year will see Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light close her double Booker-winning trilogy, while Maggie O’Farrell and Sebastian Barry also impress with historical fiction offerings
Alice O’Keeffe Books editor
W
elcome to the next six months in fiction! In terms of big books, March sees publication of one of the biggest literary books of the year.
The Mirror and the Light (Fourth Estate) tells the third and final part of Thomas Cromwell’s story. The first two titles in the series, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, each scooped the Booker Prize in their respective years; can Hilary Mantel (pictured) score a hat-trick? Another historical novel I would tip for all the prizes
is Maggie O’Farrell’s exquisite Hamnet (Tinder Press), set in 1596, which imagines the life of Shakespeare’s only son, who died aged 11. I have been a fan of O’Farrell’s for 20 years, ever since her début, Aſter You’d Gone, and so I say, with confidence, that Hamnet really is her tour de force. Also unmissable is Sebastian Barry’s extraordi- nary A Thousand Moons (Faber). Set in post-Civil War Tennessee, it is technically a sequel to his Costa Book of the Year-winning Days Without End, but it can also be read as a standalone. The path from YA to successful adult novelist is well- trodden in recent years, and Holly Bourne is a case in point. Her first novel for adults, How Do You Like Me Now?, was terrific, and her second, Pretending (Hodder), about a young woman fed up with dating, should do very well. A couple of notable children’s/YA authors follow suit over the next six months: Kiran Millwood Hargrave, a Waterstones Children’s Book Prize winner, publishes her first novel for adults, The Mercies (Picador), based on real-life witch trials in 17th-century Norway. YA fantasy superstar Sarah J Maas moves into adult fantasy with the launch of the Cresent Cit series, kicking off with House of Earth and Blood (Bloomsbury). Some heartwarming commercial fiction to look out for: Beth O’Leary follows her charming début The Flatshare with The Switch (Quercus), a life-swap comedy about the importance of communit, which is also the theme of The Authenticit Project (Bantam Press), Clare Pooley’s début.
A key début in literary fiction will be Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer (Hamish Hamilton). Finally, some top-selling hardbacks are arriving in paperback; among them joint-Booker Prize winners Girl, Woman, Other (Penguin) by Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments (Vintage). Expect a big marketing push for Sweet Sorrow (Hodder), David Nicholls’ gorgeous tale of first love. Happy bookselling!
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You can find Alice on Twitter (@aliceokbooks), or make contact via email (
alice.okeeffe@thebookseller.com)
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The Bookseller Buyer’s Guide Fiction
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