As we find our feet in 2021, we look forward to a bountiful year of book releases: debuts and follow ups, fiction and non-fiction, hardback and paperback. With a number of fantastic hardbacks out last year, we’re now blessed with their paperback follow-ups. As ever from Artellus Ltd. there’s a great variety: From Nazis and Paris to motherhood and madness. The two things all these books have in common are their superb quality and their literary agency.
Juliet Bates’ The Colours was released on Fleet (Little Brown) last year. The hardback garnered praise for its literary prose, fine artistry, and mesmerising story. Set around the North East of England it captures time, geographies, and relationships as they evolve. The Yorkshire post described Bates’ The Colours as “Striking, closely observed, and beautifully wrought.” The paperback edition of The Colours is released this June.
Kyra Wilder was selected as one of Picador’s New Voices in 2020. Her debut novel Little Bandaged Days was a taut, emotionally charged thriller centred on a new mother. Little Bandaged Days was a critically acclaimed debut, described by The Guardian as “gripping, observant, wonderfully written – and extravagantly cruel.” The paperback edition was published by Picador in January 2021.
Christopher Othen’s meticulously researched history book The King Of Nazi Paris documents the rise of Henri Lafont, a petit criminal who rose to become the most powerful crook and head of the ‘French Gestapo’ in Nazi occupied Paris. This pacy historical account covers some incredible characters and events, unearthing a little known story within a very well known era. According to Paul Lay for The Times “Othen captures the seediness and amorality of Lafont, his men and occupied Paris.” The paperback edition will come out on 23rd of March, published by Biteback.
Last but not least is the paperback release of Samir Puri’s The Great Imperial Hangover. This masterful analysis takes on the role of imperial legacies across the globe in the here and now. The hardback release by Atlantic Books garnered wide praise for its even- handed analysis of how our present world lives under the shadow of its colonial past. A must read for those interested in geopolitics and global history, The Great Imperial Hangover comes out on paperback in July.
Originally Posted on January 22, 2021