News To Me
Number 9 on the Barnes & Noble Contemporary romance Top Ten List is Singled Out by Trisha Ashley. I’ve never heard of the book or the author. What’s strange about the listing - yes, there’s something strange here - is that it has a publication date of January 2006, but it’s listed as a hardcover bargain book. The price is $3.99 or $3.59 if you have one of those nifty member cards. I’m guessing since the reviews are dated in 2004 that this came out overseas first and has been re-released here in hardcover. But why the bargain basement price for something that’s not a month old?
Here’s the cover. You’ll see why it caught my eye:
February 5th, 2006 at 10:28 am
This was news to me, too, HelenKay! I am a Brit. author, and Singled Out first came out over here in 2004….I think. Can’t remember offhand. Anyway, then St Martin’s Press brought it out as a hardback - with a much better cover than the original Piatkus one. So it wasn’t really published in January 2006 at all, these were presumably remainders. Hope lots of people took a chance on an unknown author and bought a copy!
Singled Out has a few parallels with events in the life of Jane Austen, if you look for them, and St Martin’s also published Every Woman For Herself, an earlier one, which has a touch of the Brontes about it. Latest book, published here and in USA by Severn House, is the Generous Gardener., set in Wales and Grand Cayman.
Now I’ve found your blog (through a Google alert) I’ll keep coming back, you pick up on some interesting stuff. (And no, I don’t mean just me.)
February 6th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Hi Trisha - Thanks for stopping by. I’m one of those people who took advantage of the nice low price and picked up a copy. Now I’ll go look for the Generous Gardner…
February 7th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Hope you like it! The value of cheap copies and secondhand books is that readers will take a risk on an author they haven’t read before, then if they like them, hopefully buy the next one when it comes out…