Harlequin MIRA has created a trade paperback program that goes far beyond the parent company's roots in romance. Here, with the support of the publisher, Shelf Awareness presents a program that includes a range of literary and commercial titles that will be sold and marketed with flair.
"People hear the name Harlequin and they immediately think romance," said Diane Mosher, product manager at Harlequin MIRA. "But we're publishing much more than that. We have some great and competitive commercial and literary trade titles out there, and we will publish many more."
The focus of this effort is the Harlequin MIRA trade paperback program, which emphasizes commercial and literary fiction. While Harlequin MIRA has published trade paperbacks in the past, the "well-rounded" trade paperback program will expand next year to about 15 titles.
"We want to be selective and stay focused," said senior editor Erika Imranyi, who was hired in May 2011 primarily to acquire trade paperback titles for Harlequin MIRA. 
"The books are about human relationships, not necessarily romance," Imranyi continued. "They are novels people want to talk about and share." While the books will appeal to a range of readers, she noted that Harlequin's legion of romance readers are "voracious readers. They don't read only romance, and they're looking for other stories."
The look of the books is an important part of the Harlequin MIRA trade paperback program. "We meet early to brainstorm with the art team to create innovative and beautiful packaging," Mosher said.
The attention to detail is obvious in several of the books that have just been published. One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf has French flaps and deckle edges, and the author's name is embossed on the cover, which features a striking image of a girl's face. The Book of Summers by Emylia Hall has deckle edges and a cover of flowers that are embossed only in the central part where the title and author's name appears.
Marketing is also important. For One Breath Away, Harlequin MIRA employed a very nontraditional campaign: last month some 2,500 trays on US Airways planes displayed information about the book, including a brief excerpt, a quote and a QR code that that went to a three-chapter excerpt and a digital coupon for $1.50 discount on the book at retail stores, including those in airports. The trays appeared on a total of 2,679 flights during July. And as if that wasn't promotion enough, in addition to radio and print ads, the company aired a TV commercial for One Breath Away on television stations including A&E, VH1, Style, OWN, E!, TNT, Bravo, Lifetime and the Cooking Channel.
With this kind of design and marketing flair, combined with strong storytelling, Harlequin MIRA trade paperbacks should have a warm reception from readers, who are increasingly embracing trade paperbacks.
The Book of Summers
The Book of Summers, a first novel by Emylia Hall that was published in June, begins when Beth Lowe receives an unexpected package that contains a scrapbook entitled The Book of Summers, a poignant, haunting record of the seven enchanting summers she spent as an adolescent with her now-estranged mother in the Hungarian countryside. The package's arrival leads her to reexamine her adolescence and her family's unspoken secrets. The novel focuses on the "compelling relationship between a mother and daughter," said senior editor Erika Imranyi, and is partly set in Hungary, where Hall's mother is from, a locale that Hall "brings to life in a compelling and vivid way." The Book of Summers was a Richard and Judy pick in the U.K.
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One Breath Away
Published last month, One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf starts when a sudden snowstorm descends on Broken Branch, Iowa, and an unknown armed man enters the town's only school and takes a classroom of children hostage. Told from the points of view of five characters, One Breath Away "explores the unspoken events that shape a community, the ties between parents and their children, and how the fragile normalcy of our everyday life is so easily shattered," editor Miranda Indrigo said. It's "a plot that grabs your attention from the first page, characters that find their way deep into your heart, and writing that is lyrical and evocative." Gudenkauf, who lives in Iowa, is also the author of The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden.
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The Unfinished Garden
In The Unfinished Garden by Barbara Claypole White, to be published in September, two damaged people--a successful software developer suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder and a withdrawn widow struggling with guilt over her husband's death--find solace in gardening. He sees her as a kind of key to his salvation and wants her to be his client. At first, she wants nothing to do with him, but eventually something special between them takes root. The book offers insight into an unusual disorder and is told with "deep sympathy and humor," said editor Miranda Indrigo. "I found myself rooting for these characters throughout the book and wondering about what happened to them afterward--just as if they were real."
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Heaven Should Fall
In Heaven Should Fall by Rebecca Coleman, to be published in October, Jill Wagner witnesses a frightening change in the behavior of Cade Olmstead, her fiancé, after they move in with his dysfunctional family in rural New England to have their baby. Cade's brother, wounded in Afghanistan, struggles and eventually kills himself, which transforms Cade's patriotism into vengeance. "Your heart will be in your throat for the lone sensible outsider who risks everything to save them all without losing herself in the process," said senior editor Susan Swinwood. "It's as controversial as it is gripping." Coleman is also the author of The Kingdom of Childhood.
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I'll Be Seeing You
Scheduled for publication in June 2013, I'll Be Seeing You by Loretta Nyhan and Suzanne Hayes (aka Suzanne Palmieri) is a novel set during World War II about two women whose husbands are abroad. The two women write letters to each other, sharing personal stories and developing a friendship even though they never meet. Erika Imranyi said I'll Be Seeing You is told "with heart and charm and emotion and celebrates the strength and solidarity of women, especially during wartime."
This book has a striking twist that mirrors a premise of the novel: the co-authors have not met in person. Imranyi noted that the two, who live in Connecticut and Chicago, met online workshopping each other's writing and began an exercise of sending letters back in forth in the voices of some of their characters. "Now they're the greatest of friends." To add poignance to the book (and its title), the authors likely will not meet until I'll Be Seeing You is published.
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The Returned
To be published September 2013 in hardcover, The Returned by Jason Mott is what Erika Imranyi called a good example of "editorial not necessarily associated with Harlequin." The debut novel is "a high concept, literary blockbuster." The opening is a kicker: an elderly couple answer a knock on the front door and find their eight-year-old son, who died 50 years earlier. The author doesn't explain how or why any of this happens. Some people think it's the end of days; others are grateful to have their loved ones back. Mott is a published poet and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The Harlequin staff is particularly excited about this book and plans to promote it heavily.
Loretta Nyhan photo: Alexa Frangos
Suzanne Hayes photo: Jammi York
Jason Mott photo: Angela Mott
Heather Gudenkauf is the author of The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden. Her new novel, One Breath Away, was recently published by Harlequin MIRA. Gudenkauf grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and in Iowa. She was born with a profound unilateral hearing impairment and became a voracious reader. She graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in elementary education. Gudenkauf lives in Iowa with her husband, three children and a very spoiled German Shorthaired Pointer named Maxine.
On your nightstand now:
I always have a stack of books next to my bed, and the current pile includes A Cold Dish by Craig Johnson, part of a great mystery series about a Wyoming sheriff that's new to me; The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, the story of the slowing of the earth's rotation as told through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl; and an advanced reading copy of Blasphemy, a collection of short stories by Sherman Alexie that I was lucky enough to get at BookExpo America. And those are just the ones on my nightstand--there are bunches more underneath my bed waiting to promoted to my bedside table!
Favorite book when you were a child:
My favorite book as a young child was The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson. I was completely enamored with the tenderhearted bull who only wanted to sit and smell the flowers. I could spend hours reading the story and poring over the illustrations. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I was given a record (remember those?) with a narrator reading the story aloud so I could follow along.
Your top five authors:
I have many favorites, but these are my perennial go to authors: Sandra Dallas, Elizabeth Berg, Anita Shreve, Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich. I know, that's six, but I couldn't cross any of these amazing authors off my list.
Book you've faked reading:
I'm ashamed to say that I have had Tolstoy's Anna Karenina looking accusingly at me from my bookshelf for years. When I first purchased the book, I toted it around with me in hopes that I would actually read it. I haven't given up hope yet. One day…
Book you're an evangelist for:
I love the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery series by Louise Penny about the tiny fictional town of Three Pines just south of Montreal and its inhabitants. I tell anyone who will listen: After reading the first book in the series, Still Life, you will be happy to have met the characters, after the second book you will want to visit Three Pines, and after the third book you will want to pack up and move there. This is how enchanting Penny's writing is!
Book you've bought for the cover:
Many of the books I buy are due to the cover art, and this was definitely the case for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. The simple yet striking red cover and the upside down black poodle made me stop in my tracks. Upon moving beyond the arresting cover and into the pages, The Curious Incident did not disappoint--I loved it.
Book that changed your life:
Can I have more than one? As a young girl, the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder made me into a reader, My Antonia by Willa Cather made me want to be a writer and Just Don't Fall by Josh Sundquist helped teach me that humor and good can come from even the most difficult of circumstances.
Favorite line from a book:
I have so many favorite lines from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, but the quote that resounds with me most is "As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed." While my upbringing was much different from protagonist Francie's childhood, we had one thing in common--an undying, unwavering love for books.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
If I could read a book again for the first time, it would have to be Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. When you close a book and realize immediately that you desperately miss the characters and can't stand not knowing what has become of them, you know it is a very special book. Betty Smith had a way of writing and talking to the reader in such a manner that I found myself in dialogue with her. Yes, that is exactly how it is! I would exclaim (most of the time this was an inner dialogue, but not always). There is such a truth to her stories, a turn of phrase that leaves you nodding your head. I would like to experience that feeling for the first time all over again.
Emylia Hall grew up in the Devon countryside, the daughter of an English artist and a Hungarian quilt-maker. After studying at York University and in Lausanne, Switzerland, Hall spent five years working in a London ad agency before moving to the French Alps. It was there that she began to write. Hall now lives in Bristol with her husband, also an author. The Book of Summers (Harlequin MIRA) is her first novel, and is inspired by memories of childhood holidays spent in rural Hungary.
On your nightstand now:
The Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson. It's set between 1920s Kashgar and contemporary London. I'm only a little way in and I've no idea where the story's going, but I'm loving the ride. The writing is beautiful; controlled, but vivid. It's great reading the novels of fellow 2012 debut authors because in a way they feel like your classmates.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome. Set in the English lake District , it follows the exploits of a group of children who spend their summers there, clashing with--and then befriending--the locals. It's full of plucky, grubby-kneed female characters who have grand adventures in sailing boats and build campfires. Above all, it's a book about the celebration of the imagination, and for me that's the best kind.
Your top five authors:
Very difficult, but today I'm going to say Anne Tyler, Ernest Hemingway, J.G. Ballard, Jane Austen and Susan Fletcher (the Brit who wrote Eve Green, not the U.S. writer of the same name).
Book you've faked reading:
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. I was 19 and studying English literature at college. It was the summer semester of my first year, and let's just say my head was full of other things. I read some summary notes and managed to get through the seminar, feeling only slightly like a charlatan. We studied George Eliot's Daniel Deronda around the same time. I can't swear that I finished that either. Oops.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Diamond Star Halo by Tiffany Murray. I chanced upon this book back in May, drawn by a quote on the cover--"a cross between Wuthering Heights and your favourite mix tape." It's now one of my most beloved books of all time. It's beautifully poetic, captures the awkwardness of adolescence and a yearning that goes into adulthood, and has a rural setting that I can really identify with. And it's a little bit rock and roll, too.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Philip Roth's American Pastoral in a U.K. edition published by Vintage as part of a series of rainbow coloured books to celebrate their 21st birthday. It's an eye-popping canary yellow, with just American Pastoral in simple serif type. It looks good enough to eat.
Book that changed your life:
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Memoir, fictionalized memoir, whatever. It's an incredibly powerful book and reminded me that you can never look at a person and presume to know their story.
Favorite line from a book:
Oh my goodness, that's a question I'd happily ruminate on for at least a week, but seeing as I'm up against a deadline on my second novel, that's probably not the best use of time. So I'd say it's the first line of Hemingway's epilogue to Death in the Afternoon: "If I could have made this enough of a book, it would have had everything in it." Often my taste is for the lyrical, the poetic, but there's something about the sentiment behind this line that is really moving. When you write, you want to say all of the things that matter to you. Your head is so full of life--big things, small things, everything in between--that distilling it, choosing what to say and what not, and understanding that you'll never say it all, is every author's ambition and a good author's achievement. The epilogue that follows that line is one of my favourite pieces of work by any writer, anywhere.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I always strongly associate books with where I was and what I was doing when I read them. I read Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible while on a snowboarding holiday in the French Alps, a trip during which my boyfriend (now husband) proposed to me. The incredible heat and startling atmosphere of the Congo was a far cry from the cool serenity of the snow-clad mountains, and I took great pleasure in leaping from delicious reality into compelling fantasy and back again. It'll always be my "proposal book." That's an experience I wouldn't mind re-living as well. I'd try to weep less and actually manage to get out the word "yes."
Emylia Hall photo: fayetography.com
