A series of self-published erotic novels has been acquired by Hachette’s Forever imprint, reports the AP, to the tune of $7 million.

The first four titles in Meredith Wild’s Hacker series, Hardwired, Hardpressed, Hardline and Hard Limit have just been released by Forever in e-book editions. Paperback editions will follow on May 12,  The fifth and final book, Hard Love, will be published in both e-book and paperback on Sept. 15.

“Fans of Fifty Shades of Grey may recognize the Hacker narrative: Recent Harvard graduate and Internet entrepreneur Erica Hathaway falls for controlling billionaire Blake Landon,” notes the AP.

Another self-published romance author, Jasinda Wilder, has signed with Berkley Books, as reported by USA Today, in a seven-figure deal for a new trilogy, beginning with Madame X in November (Penguin/Berkley, 9781101986882).

Just announced, Terry Pratchett’s final novel in the Discworld series will be:

The Shepherd’s Crown
Pratchett, Terry
HarperCollins, 9/15/2015
Hardcover, 9780062429971
Audio, 9780062430557

The 41^st title in the series, it continues the Tiffany Aching sequence that began with The Wee Free Men in 2003 and includes A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I Shall Wear Midnight.

According to the announcement on Pratchett’s book site, he completed the novel in 2014, before his death earlier this year. It will be published in hardcover, ebook, and audio formats. NOTE: Some news sources say the publisher is Random House. They are the publisher of the U.K. edition. In the U.S., it will be released by HarperCollins.

The Shepherd’s Crown is not the only book coming from Pratchett. His fourth novel in the Long Earth series with Stephen Baxter, The Long Utopia (Harper; OverDrive Sample), is also due this year, on June 23^rd.

UPDATE: The release date is now set for 8/7/15

The enormous success of the movie based on Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl leaves fans wondering what has happened to the adaptation of another Flynn novel, Dark Places with an A-list cast headed by Charlize Theron.

Originally scheduled for release on Sept. 1, that date has come and gone with no further news. The movie just premiered in Paris, complete with Theron dazzling in Dior, to a mixed, but mostly positive review from The Hollywood Reporter, and a more negative one from Variety, and the note it will be released in the U.S.  “later this year,”

Perhaps the tie-in, now scheduled for release in June, offers a clue that it will arrive in the fall.

Meanwhile, as we noted earlier, Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, is being adapted as a TV series.

Flynn, who has a developing career in Hollywood, is now at work on an original script with 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen.

How critical are plot inconsistencies to the enjoyment of a book?

Holly LeCraw’s new book, The Half Brother (RH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample), has caught librarian Nancy Pearl in its plot lines.

On her weekly radio feature Nancy discusses how much she loves the novel in general, set in an Episcopal boarding school, and that she particularly admires its gorgeous language.

However, Nancy was less certain about the plot, which turns on several forced coincidences. that make her wonder if the book is ultimately successful. Her discussion is a model of how to talk about a book you may not fully admire. Finely balancing LeCraw’s strengths with her own reactions, Nancy leaves readers intrigued but forewarned.

Others are a more certain in their reactions. Booklist gave LeCraw’s second novel (after The Swimming Pool) a starred review, comparing LeCraw to Pat Conroy, Anne Tyler, and Donna Tartt. The Millions also made it one of their “Most Anticipated” titles for the year.

Nancy talks about a new book each week on Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW.

The taint has been lifted from the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman,(Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe; HarperCollins Español; HarperCollins Español Audio; eBook) set for July 14.

On Friday, the Alabama officials looking into the case announced that accusations of elder abuse against Lee are unfounded. They declined to comment further. Due to confidentiality agreements, their findings will not be released. This followed the closing last month of the state’s investigation into fraud against Lee.

The novel will be released as an eBook as well as downloadable audio. It was only last year that Lee finally agreed to releasing To Kill a Mockingbird digitally.

It will also be available in Spanish-language print and audio editions, titled, Ve y pon un centinela.

Holds on all formats are reaching The Girl on the Train levels.

David Mitchell’s next novel is Slade House (Random House; ISBN 9780812998689; $26), to be published on Oct. 27^th.

The 272-page book, which is much shorter than a typically Mitchell tome, started out as a series of tweets and then, according to The LA Times “Jacket Copy,” “morphed, Mitchell-istically, into a five-part novel.”

Not much is known about the book as yet. The publisher information describes it as,

“a taut, intricately woven, spine-chilling, reality-warping novel. Set across five decades, beginning in 1979 and coming to its astonishing conclusion on October 31, 2015.”

The Guardian reports it is set in the same universe as The Bone Clocks.

Fans of Mitchell typically have to wait at least two years between titles, but Slade House will be in readers’ hands 13 months after most began reading The Bone Clocks.

In keeping with a move to create physically compelling print books, Slade House is in a smaller trim size than normal hardcovers and will be issued without a jacket so readers can appreciate the die cut cover and the peak-a-boo illustration beneath.

Libraries have plenty of hardcover copies of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch but it is still welcome news that the trade paperback edition (Hachette/Back Bay Books; ISBN 9780316055444; $20.00) hits the shelves this week, just in time for book club picks and kits.

It has also just been announced as the COSTCO book buyer’s pick for April.

It may have slipped to #2 on yesterday’s  USA Today’s best-seller list, but Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (Penguin/Riverhead) is still number one on the just-released NYT Hardcover Fiction list, with Harlan Coben’s The Stranger (Penguin/Dutton) at #2. Still going strong after 47 weeks is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (S&S/Scribner) at #3. We issued a holds alert for that book almost one year ago.

The Publishers Weekly/BooScan list shows that GOTT sold 5,000 more copies at the retailers they survey than Coben’s book.

George R.R. Martin offers fans a glimpse into his upcoming novel, The Winds of Winter, with an excerpt featuring the character Alayne, better known as Sansa Stark.

The sneak peek, announced on Martin’s blog yesterday, reveals the once battered and cowed Sansa to be still at the Eyrie, hiding out as “Alayne,” the bastard daughter of Littlefinger, and caught up in another of his plots to seduce a man. Alayne seems to be more than holding her own now, telling her would-be suitor on the eve of a tourney, “I hope you joust better than you talk.”

Martin released another excerpt last year. It was so popular it crashed his site.

There is no firm news on when Martin hopes to complete The Winds of Winter but he has been clearing his schedule to devote more time to the long anticipated novel. Note: the cover we show here may not be the official one. It appears all over the internet, including on Entertainment Weekly’s site, but seems to have originated as fan art. UPDATE: We checked with the publisher, who confirms the cover is NOT official.

The showrunners of the HBO series based on his books recently announced that they will begin to outpace Martin’s story after the upcoming season, leaving fans to pick between spoiler-viewing or waiting for Martin to catch up.

The fifth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones begins on April 12.

Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (Penguin/Riverhead) has slipped off the tracks, getting replaced as the top book on USA Today’s best-seller list by Harlan Coben’s The Stranger (Penguin/Dutton; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Girl on the Train ruled the top of the USA Today list for over a month but is now in the No. 2 spot.

In toppling Hawkins from her reigning position, Coben achieved what James Patterson could not. As we reported last week, Patterson’s newest, NYPD Red 3 (Hachette/Little, Brown), hit USA Today’s list in second place, behind GOTT. It has since slipped to the No. 5 spot.

Most libraries routinely buy more copies of Patterson then they do of Coben. It may be time to rethink that.

The star attraction of the RH/Knopf Fall 2015  catalog, posted on Friday, is the fourth title in The Millennium series, which began with Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Although Larsson reportedly left behind a manuscript for another title in the series when he died, this is an entirely new book, written by Swedish journalist David Lagercrantz, chosen by Larsson’s Swedish publisher, Norstedts with the approval of Larsson’s brother and father.

Another interested party is not happy about the forthcoming book. Larsson’s partner of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson in an interview by Agence France-Presse, says this book’s release is not about continuing his legacy, “It’s about a publishing house [Norstedts] that needs money, (and) a writer who doesn’t have anything to write so he copies someone else.”

The title, translated from the Swedish, is That Which Does Not Kill.

UPDATE: The English-language title will be The Girl in the Spider’s Web, continuing the tradition of the others in the series, according to the Wall Street Journal, which also quotes Knopf’s Editor-in-Chief Sonny Mehta, who brought all three previous novels in the series to the U.S., “I think it has all the richness of the original sequence of novels. It’s got a whole chain of American characters in it, and American settings as well.”

Millennium Series: Book 4
David Lagercrantz
RH/Knopf: September 1, 2015
9780385354288, 0385354282
$27.95 USD

The HBO/BBC adaptation of  J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, (Hachette/Little, Brown) debuts on HBO April 29th & 30th.

It has already aired in the U.K., where fans resented a change in the ending. As a result, many took to Twitter to urge others to read the book instead.

The trailer for U.S. audiences was just released. Harry Potter fans will recognize one of the actors.

Media Tie-in Edition (cover not yet released):

The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling
Hachette/Back Bay Books: April 28
Trade Paperback  $18.00 USD, $20.00 CAD

The BBC has also signed the detective series that Rowling wrote under the name Robert Galbraith (The Cukoo’s Calling, The Silkworm) for a series.

Will word of mouth sink or buoy up Sara Gruen’s At The Water’s Edge (RH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio; RH Large Print; Overdrive Sample), arriving next week?

Early reactions are sharply divided. It’s the #1 LibraryReads pick for April but both Kirkus and Booklist were less than enthusiastic, with Kirkus calling it plain “silly” and complaining that the main characters came across as “spoiled brats.” Past history is also divided. The author has published one blockbuster, Water for Elephants, the basis for a successful movie (which may even become a Broadway musical), followed by the less successful Ape House.

We checked in with several collection development librarians to get their take. All of them expect At The Water’s Edge to hit best seller lists based on the author’s name recognition and to continue due to word of mouth. Several took a strong position early and others have gone back to order more copies.

Below are their major points (sorry, quotes had to be anonymous).

Setting:

• “The World War II setting will definitely be a bigger attraction than that of Ape House (a research center dedicated to studying bonobo apes).”
• Set in Scotland, it includes fascinating details about the Loch Ness monster

Comparison to previous titles:

• Most said that Ape House had not done well at all in their libraries, but one librarian cautions, “Underperformance is relative. We might have considered Ape House a success if we didn’t have Water for Elephants as a comparison.”

Characters:

• “Unlikeable characters have held back some titles from star writers for us before.”
• “Some people complain about the characters in GOTT, but that hasn’t killed word of mouth.”
• The main character shows emotional development and don’t forget, there’s a romance involved.

Reading Group Appeal:

• “Reading groups who will have a great time dissecting this book and parsing the characters.”

Reviews:

• The LJExpress review, posted after the less appreciative Kirkus and Booklist reviews, has it right. “Get past [some issues with believability], and you’ll find yourself skimming along entertainingly with Maddie as she grows up, asserts herself, and gets the right man.”
• “One of my very best ARC readers raved about it, and she’s never wrong.”
• The consumer press will have an effect, especially if Entertainment Weekly and/or People are enthusiastic. It will get media attention of course. The  author is scheduled to appear on the upcoming NPR Weekend Edition Saturday and next week on the Diane Rehm Show.

Summary:

• “My best guess (educated, of course ) is this book will circulate briskly for most of the summer into the fall and be a book club favorite. It’s success will be closer to Water for Elephants and much better than Ape House, which was a bust for us. It has a lot of hooks going for it: Scotland, World War II, romance, Loch Ness monster, a Downtown Abbey vibe (few seem to be bothered that Lord Grantham and family continue going to balls and teas in the midst of war).”

Place your bets in the comments section, below!

The long-gestating film adaptation of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, (RH/Crown, 2011) has made a giant step towards reality. Warner Bros. announced Wednesday that they’ve hired a director,  Steven Spielberg.

Currently finishing up the original Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks, Spielberg’s next project is the film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG, currently scheduled for release July 1, 2016. After that, reports Deadline, he plans to turn his attention to the Cline adaptation. Also on his plate, but evidently now third in line, is an adaptation of Lynsey Addario’s recently released memoir,  It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War (Penguin, Feb. 10), with Jennifer Lawrence set to star.

Ready Player One, Cline’s debut, was the top title on a list of librarian favorites for the year.

Cline’s second book, Armada (RH/Crown, RH & BOT Audio), set for publication on July 24th, has also been optioned for a movie .

You can hear the joy in librarian Nancy Pearl’s voice when she discovers a new author she loves. During her program on Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW this week, she is especially excited about discovering a debut, Rebecca Scherm’s novel Unbecoming (Penguin/Viking, Jan. 22; OverDrive Sample).

Nancy particularly appreciates Sherm’s deftness in crafting a restrained novel with fully realized characters. The “psychological acuity, the way [Sherm] understands her characters and presents them to us, is just brilliant,” she says, adding “it’s amazing what she did in just 308 pages. I love this book.”

Sherm’s novel was also part of the Penguin First Flights program on EarlyWord in October. In a live chat with librarians, Sherm discusses her influences – Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock – as well as how she hopes readers respond to her characters, “As a writer, there’s a sense of readerly discomfort that I want. One of the things I find so incredible about Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels is that I am rooting for him and against him at the same time.”

What’s the novel about? Summing it up on her own website, Sherm posts a useful RA description “Unbecoming reinvents the heist plot and takes up the making of a femme fatale — this time, from a woman’s point of view.” In their “Briefly Noted” summary The New Yorker writes this “lively début combines a knotty coming-of-age tale and a high-society caper.” The NYT Sunday Book Review deems it “startlingly inventive.”

Nancy features a new book each Tuesday. An archive of previous shows is on the KUOW site.