| Azincourt | Bernard Cornwell | HarperCollins |
| Devil May Care | Sebastian Faulks | Penguin 007 |
| The Outcast | Sadie Jones | Vintage |
| Thanks for the Memories | Cecelia Ahern | Harper |
| Things I Want My Daughters to Know | Elizabeth Noble | Penguin |
| This Charming Man | Marian Keyes | Penguin |
The reward for consistently good writing is the ability to sell books on name alone. Marian Keyes, who continues to pick up thousands of new readers with each new book, is now popular enough to be advertised by her forename alone. Cecelia Ahern and Elizabeth Noble have both won over readers by refusing to shield them from life’s tragedies, even as they tell tales of love, kinship and hope.
Bernard Cornwell’s instinct for authentic period excitement was brought to bear on Henry V’s triumph on the battlefields of northern France and Sebastian Faulks won himself a whole new set of fans by bringing the Bond franchise back to life. Lastly, Sadie Jones undermined the traditional split between popular and literary fiction, delighting both readers and critics with her story of redemption in the face of rigid and uncaring social values.
But which of these authors do you think has a broad enough appeal to win the Sainsbury’s Popular Fiction Award?
Aren’t Cecelia Ahern and Marian Keyes “chick-lit”? What are they doing here, god bless them! The choice for me is between Cornwell and Faulks, one who probably deserves the award for sheer perseverance over the years, and the other because he has vividly brought James Bond up to date…
Yes Ahern and Keyes are chick-lit hampshireReader, but then none of the books on the list is what you’d call literary. It’s a popularity vote, so it’s only to be expected that the nominees will be popular fiction. If I had to read one of these books it’d be Marian Keyes, as I’ve read interviews and articles by her in the papers and she seems smart and funny.
I LOVE Marian Keyes.
I wish I could meet her, I’ve read all her book, have made my sister read her book, and now my mom is reading her book ( In FRENCH). There hard to find in french.
Marian Please if you ever invite a fan pick MOI, if you come to Canada pick MOI mon amie. I simply love your books…
Your biggest fan.
Sylvia from Montreal Canada.
Marian.. Je t’aime…xoxoxox
SORRY! Typo up above, I meant books. Not book. I’ve read all her books.
Sadie Jones. She writes like Ian McEwan would if he could write credible female characters! The Outcast was amazing, although I’d be interested to know if she sells well in other countries – would, say, Americans, really relate to that very English atmosphere of social claustrophobia?
I have to defend Marian Keyes, hampshirereader. She may get categorised as ‘chick lit’, but she’s so much better than most of that stuff with pink covers and characters obsessed with shopping. She talks about real issues like alcohol abuse and divorce, making readers feel they’re not alone, instead of pushing some implausible, superficial lifestyle where all that matters is where the next pair of shoes is coming from.