The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Janson-Smith opens Blue Door

15.07.08 Graeme Neill

A Chinese ghost story, the Welsh valleys’ answer to Trainspotting and “John le Carré meets Jason Bourne” are the three subjects of the first acquisitions made by Patrick Janson-Smith for his new HarperCollins imprint Blue Door.

The Hungry Ghosts by Anne Berry will be the first title published by the Press Books imprint in June 2009. Janson-Smith signed a pre-empt deal for world English language rights in two books for a “good six-figure sum” with agent Judith Murdoch. The novel is set in 1960s Hong Kong and the heroine is Alice Safford, who is possessed by the angry ghost of a young Chinese rape victim. She embarks on a “relentless and poignant” path of self-destruction to England then France to seek peace.

Janson-Smith said it was the “dream book” to launch the imprint. “It’s an absolute stunner of a novel: a family saga with magical realist overlays, beautifully written and compulsively readable: as good as The Lovely Bones or your money back.”

The second Blue Door release, Dead Spy Running by Jon Stock, will be published in July 2009. Janson-Smith won an auction between five publishers, including Headline, Hodder and Transworld, to clinch world English language volume rights. He paid a “good six-figure sum” to Claire Paterson of Janklow & Nesbit for three books.

Written by Daily Telegraph journalist Jon Stock, Janson-Smith described the novel, featuring disgraced former MI5 agent Daniel Marchant, as “John le Carré meets Jason Bourne”. “It’s bloody good,” he said. “It has reinvented the spy novel for the 21st century.”

The third book, Sixteen Shades of Crazy by Dylan Thomas prize winner Rachel Trezise, will be published in early 2010. Blue Door paid a five-figure sum to Broo Doherty at Wade & Doherty for UK and Commonwealth rights. Janson-Smith said that the “tremendously witty” book would examine the underbelly of society in Cardiff. “This will do for Cardiff what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh,” he said. “There will be a bit of drugs, a bit of sex and a bit of drinking—good underbelly stuff.”

Janson-Smith said that he hoped to publish around 12 books a year. Press Books m.d. John Bond hailed Blue Door’s “aggressively acquisitive” start. “Blue Door was always going to be about Patrick’s unique, eclectic taste for potential bestsellers, and these books fit the bill perfectly.”

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