Author Adriana Trigiani makes her directorial debut with the movie Big Stone Gap, based on her debut novel, which was the first book in her four-part series.

Starring Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, Jenna Elfman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jane Krakowski, it is set to  open in 250 theaters on October 9. The trailer was just released.

Tie-in:

Big Stone Gap (Movie Tie-in Edition) 
Adriana Trigiani
RH/Ballantine: August 18, 2015
Trade Paperback

Also in October, Trigiani is publishing a new novel, based on the story of actress Loretta Young (hear the HarperCollins Buzz on the book here).

All the Stars in the Heavens
Adriana Trigiani
Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe
October 13, 2015
 

First came a video game Easter egg hunt in Ready Player One (RH/Crown, 2011) then an alien invasion in Armada (RH/Crown; RH & BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample) and now comes the news via the Hollywood Reporter that Ernest Cline has just signed a contract for his third book, to be published by PRH’s Crown Publishing. Details are sketchy at best but the book will be another SF title.

Negotiations for the film rights to the untitled project begin this week. The rights to Armada were sold just after the ink was dry on that book contract. In addition. the the film adaptation of Ready Player One has just been set for release on Dec. 15, 2017 with Steven Spielberg directing the Warner Bros project.

All of this has prompted Deadline Hollywood to crown Cline as the next “Hollywood Franchise Author.”

Both of Cline’s novels have hit the NYT Bestseller lists. Ready Player One continues its long run on the trade paperback list and Armada hit the hardcover Fiction list in its first week of publication.

Librarians have been supporters of the books, making Cline’s debut the number one favorite of 2011 in a Twitter poll.

In the NYT “Arts Beat” blog today, publishing reporter Alexandra Alter runs down the impressive sales figures for The Girl on the Train. Noting that author Paula Hawkins is “wrestling with her next novel,” Alter adds, “Judging by a remark she posted on Twitter recently, the new book promises to be equally dark.”

Really struggling with writing today, so am watching Psycho to cheer myself up. Anthony Perkins was so very pretty.

— Paula Hawkins (@PaulaHWrites) August 7, 2015

Like the book that made her famous, the next one will also be a psychological thriller, this time about two sisters, states the Guardian in an interview with the author in mid-July. Hawkins adds,

The new book will have a very different feel in some ways, and similar in others. I’d like to carry over some of that air of paranoia but it’s got a much larger cast of characters, and will be a less claustrophobic book, I think.

Publication date has not yet been announced. In an interview with The Daily Beast in April, she said she plans “to finish over the summer so that it hopefully will be out summer or autumn of next year.”

With growing word of mouth, Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood (S&S/Gallery/Scout Press; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) is poised to hit next week’s bestseller lists.

Featured on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday with the wonderful headline “Scream Meets Agatha Christie,” it is also rising on Amazon, currently at #150.

Entertainment Weekly gave it an A- review, writing that the novel’s “foggy atmosphere and chilling revelations will leave you breathless.” As we noted earlier, it’s a LibraryReads pick for August and was one of GalleyChat’s unexpected BEA gems.

Holds are more than respectable on fairly light ordering.

NPR’s David Greene said that he began reading the book in a secluded park and that that was “a very bad idea. Even the title sends chills up the spine.” Here is the full interview:

Steve Hamilton, the NYT bestselling author with several Edgar wins under his belt, created a bit of a publishing tempest last week when he pulled out of his contract with St. Martin’s just weeks before his new book, The Second Life of Nick Mason was due on the shelves. (Note: cover art, left, is for the now cancelled St. Martin’s/Minotaur edition).

Libraries have solid holds lists for the start of this new series, one Harlan Coben blurbs as “A gamechanger. Nick Mason is one of the best main characters I’ve read in years. An intense, moving, absolutely relentless book — it will grab you from the first line and never let go.”

Within 23 hours of news breaking that Hamilton had walked away from St. Martin’s he was fielding multiple offers from other publishers, according to Entertainment Weekly, but the fate of his forthcoming book seemed murky (you can read the backstory here).

Separately, the AP reports that Hamilton has accepted a 4-book deal with Penguin/Putnam to publish the first two books in his Nick Mason series. The first title is now due out in the middle of 2016.

Librarian Nancy Pearl, who has been a fan and follower of Mary Doria Russell since her debut title, interviews her as part of the Book Lust series airing on the Seattle channel.

They discuss her first novel, The Sparrow (RH/Ballantine; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample), published nearly 25 years ago and still a favorite with book groups.

Russell originally planned The Sparrow as a short story, “It kind of got away from me,” she tells Nancy. Turned downed 31 times by 31 agents, Russell proved the doubters wrong and has gone on to write five more well received novels, including Doc (RH/Ballantine; OverDrive Sample) and A Thread of Grace.(RH/Ballantine; Books on Tape; OverDrive Sample).

Russell has an unusual creative process. She writes two books in the same general universe before she moves on to a different one. Her most recent is Epitaph (Harper/Ecco; OverDrive Sample; March, 2015), her second Western following Doc.

She is currently working on a book about unions and thinks the second book in that pair will be about Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa.

Charles Frazier’s 1997 novel Cold Mountain, a long-running best seller and National Book Award winner that was made into an equally successful movie, has recently become, wait for it, an opera.

Composed by Jennifer Higdon (who won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in music) with a libretto by Genre Scheer, it premiered last week at the Santa Fe Opera.

Scheer told NPR’s Morning Edition that both he and Higdon “were convinced that [the novel] was really a great idea for an opera. That there was a way of inviting music in to really illuminate the story.”

Frazier was surprised by the request for opera rights, telling NPR “My first reaction was that Inman is such an internal character — that he hardly speaks … To see him on stage singing took a little bit of adjustment.”

That is a common response from authors of print books. But perhaps one that will have to be recalibrated as more and more titles move from the page to the stage. The adaptions are not done, the beloved Tuck Everlasting is coming to Broadway in 2016.

The New York Times reports that interest is so high in Cold Mountain that the Santa Fe Opera mounted an additional a performance and is making plans to release a recording. Until then, here is a sample

The production will move to Opera Philadelphia in Feb. 2016. The Minnesota Opera also has plans to stage it.

“The smart summer thriller you’ve been waiting for. The black and harmful little book you want in your carry-on. The novel you should be reading tonight.” WOW — that’s what NPR’s Jason Sheehan says of Christopher Yates debut novel Black Chalk (Macmillan/Picador; OverDrive Sample).

In a review any writer would kill for, Sheehan reports that Yates “writes like he has 30 books behind him; like he’s been doing this so long that lit games and deviltry come to him as natural as breathing… I don’t want to say a word. And not because I don’t love the book (I do, deeply and weirdly), but because I want you to go into it cold, knowing nothing and expecting nothing, like I did. I want you to suck it down in one breath, like a lungful of dark water. For it to hit you the same way it did me: like a sucker punch delivered slowly and with exquisite precision.”

It’s also an IndieNext pick:

In Black Chalk, Yates has taken the traditional novel and tweaked it to create something very special. In Thatcher-era England, six first-year Oxford University students have come together as friends. As they get to know each other, an idea forms and quickly gains traction: they should play a ‘game,’ with the loser facing a consequence. All six agree, and the dares begin as innocuous fun. As time goes on, however, something shifts within the group and the stakes become much higher — even deadly. Fourteen years later, the remaining players meet in New York City to finish the ‘game,’ but what has transpired for them in the interim? And is winning worth the price? A gripping, sinister, and suspenseful read.”—Peggy Elefteriades, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, CT.

Jamie Lubin of The Huffington Post gets in on the game too, saying the novel “reminds me of a Hitchcock film: multiple twists and reveals, the suspenseful IV drip of information Yates doles out to the reader with a master hand, the shadowy yet intense secrets locked inside the characters while they struggle to maintain composure, the ominous atmospheres of Oxford and New York — so seemingly opposite but equally threatening.”

Debut novels can sometimes slip out of mind. The next time a reader asks for a twisty clever thriller and has exhausted the usual suspects, try to remember Black Chalk.

Get ready for a full-on marketing campaign for the movie adaptation of Andy Weir’s debut sci-fi novel, The Martian (RH/Crown). Following the first trailer, released last month, comes a clip that cleverly introduces the characters.

The movie which debuts on Oct. 2, is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Michael Peña, Aksel Hennie, Sebastian Stan and Kate Mara.

The Martian (Mass Market MTI)
Andy Weir
RH/Broadway; October 13, 2015
Mass Market; $9.99 USD, $12.99 CAD
9781101905005, 110190500X

Looking for a new suspense author to suggest? Take a look at Mary Kubica who appears on the verge of a breakout.

Following her debut The Good Girl, which was very positively received, her second novel Pretty Baby (Harlequin/MIRA; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) proves she is a name to know.

The L.A. Times recently gave it a strong review saying “It is rare that a novel of what has come to be called domestic suspense is thrilling and illuminating, but Pretty Baby manages to be both without overtly showing the hard work that has gone into striking the right balance. In doing so, it raises the ante on the genre and announces the welcome second coming of a talent well worth watching.”

New York magazine lists it as one of “8 Books You Need Read This July” and the reviewer for the web site Smart Bitches Trashy Books gave it an A, saying “Pretty Baby is Kubica’s second book, and her sophomore novel is even better than its predecessor, The Good Girl. That’s saying a lot because I loved The Good Girl like whoa.”  NPR also gives it a big thumbs up.

A People pick, we highlighted it in our Titles to Know for the week.

In the on-going battle between the big screen and the small screen, Netflix made a splash by buying the rights to a major new movie, directed by Cary Fugunaka and starring Idris Elba. Beasts of No Nation. It is based on the 2005 novel by  Uzodinma Iweala about child soldiers in West Africa.

There’s one problem. To be eligible for Oscar consideration, the movie has to open in theaters. While many theaters refuse to book movies that will be released simultaneously on cable, Netflix has managed to make a deal with Landmark Theatres to premier the movie in 19 cities on the same day it begins streaming on Netflix, October 16.

The first trailer was just released:

Tie-in:

Beasts of No Nation Movie Tie-in 
Uzodinma Iweala
Harper Perennial: September 29, 2015,

The author won New York Public Library’s 2006 Young Lions Fiction Award. The book won  praise from a wide range of publications, including the NYT Book Review

Director Fugunaka was scheduled to direct Stephen King’s It, but dropped out weeks before production. Next up for him is a TV adaptation of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist for TNT. The author recently joined as producer.

Britain’s Carnival Films, the production company behind hits such as Downton Abbey and Agatha Christie’s Poirot is gearing up for a second season of Grantchester, to air on PBS Masterpiece in 2016, according to Deadline Hollywood.

Based on the short stories by James Runcie, the first season drew from the collection Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (Bloomsbury; Movie-tie in ed.; OverDrive Sample). The new season appears to be based on Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (Macmillan/Bloomsbury; OverDrive Sample; the publisher tells EarlyWord that a movie tie-in is likely, but has not yet been announced).

If you missed the first season, Grantchester features a dishy village vicar who solves crimes around his tiny hamlet outside of Cambridge, England and ventures further afield as well. Full of jazz music, anguished flashbacks to WWII, and frustrated romance, the sprightly paced 1950s set whodunits showcase well-drawn characters, a fabulous setting, and a not quite cozy tone.

Reviews were generally positive on both sides of the ocean when season one debuted. The Telegraph wrote “Stop it, I’m hooked. Sign me up. I’ll give you my cat and house to see what happens next.”

The LA Times called the show “guilelessly entertaining” and said that while it “lulls more than it grabs [like a] good sermon, you may think you’re only barely listening until you realize you’re fully immersed.”

The New York Times had a different view, however, claiming that Grantchester will be “breezy fun for fans of the form, though the more discerning will be put off by how rudimentary the actual murder mysteries are after being squeezed into 50 minutes (half the norm for this type of show). Others are liable to find it faintly ridiculous, more of a haiku than an actual drama.”

The show created demand for the book and holds spiked at some locations beyond a 3:1 ratio.

Those who have read Emma Donoghue’s claustrophobic best seller, Room  (Hachette/Little,Brown) may have trouble imaging a movie version. Director Lenny Abrahamson took it on, with Brie Larson starring. Just released is a teaser trailer that Entertainment Weekly calls “chilling,” Wired calls “heart-crushing” and E says may be “the year’s creepiest.”

Starring Brie Larson (recently seen in a quite different movie, Trainwreck Amy Schumer), it opens 10/16/15

Tie-ins:

Room : A Novel
Emma Donoghue
Trade Pbk.
Hachette/Back Bay: September 8, 2015
Mass Market
Audio CD

The Romance Writers of America Association announced the 2015 RITA winners.

As described by the association’s website, the awards are given “to promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published romance novels and novellas” and are selected by a panel of judges.

The RITAs have multiple categories, a full list is available online. Below are the big four along with the Librarian of the Year pick.

Contemporary (Long): Baby, It’s You by Jane Graves (Hachette/Forever; OverDrive Sample).

Historical (Long): Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran (S&S/Pocket; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Romantic Suspense: Concealed in Death by J.D. Robb (Penguin/ G.P. Putnam’s Sons; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Paranormal: Evernight by Kristen Callihan (Hachette/Forever; OverDrive Sample).

Lisa Schimmer, a senior cataloger at NoveList, won the Cathie Linz Librarian of the Year Award.

Author Chelsea Cain reviews A.J. Rich’s The Hand That Feeds You in this week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review.

The story follows a student at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who comes home to find her fiancé mauled to death by her three dogs . As she tries to piece together what happened, she discovers her fiancé was not the person he claimed to be.

As we reported, booksellers are behind it and so is Cain, who says it is “a tense, intriguing psychological mystery … [with] a clearheaded, character-driven style… [filled with] the sort of celebration of simple moments more often seen in short stories.”

As Cain points out, the creation of the novel is as interesting as its plot. A.J. Rich, is the pen name for two authors, Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, who collaborated on the project begun by their dying friend, Katherine Russell Rich.

Holds are outpacing copies across the country.