FICTION: Experiencing a new British invasion with Regency and Victorian drama

BY DAVID LONG, senior acquisitions editor, Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group

It is a fact universally acknowledged that a publisher, seeing the rise and success of a new category of fiction, will eventually try to find an author of their own to fit that category. So it has been since the days of Jane Austen and so it is still. In fact, things have changed so little that, all these years later, it is still Miss Austen we’re all chasing.

Or if it’s not Austen exactly, then perhaps best-selling author Julie Klassen or the popularity of Downton Abbey. A new British invasion is headed this way in the form of new Regency and Victorian fiction, and upstairs-downstairs stories set in the shadow of World War I. Klassen continues to be the category’s runaway voice—her newest novel, The Tutor’s Daughter, will arrive on shelves soon—but expect to see more fiction to warm an Anglophile’s heart. In 2013, Bethany House will be debuting Julianna Deering’s Rules of Murder, an Agatha Christie-esque mystery series set in and around an English estate.

Mystery and suspense are growing in popularity on this side of the pond as well, particularly in the category of romantic suspense. The best-selling success of authors such as Irene Hannon, author of Lethal Legacy, and Dani Pettrey, whose debut, Submerged, spent its first four months as a best-seller, cemented romantic suspense as a rising genre, even before Dee Henderson’s return, when her novel Full Disclosure put the genre on the New York Times best-seller list for the first time.

Beyond contemporary romantic suspense, contemporary romance will also see some growth in upcoming seasons. With historical romance and Amish fiction plateauing, readers are seeking new voices in other categories. Bethany House was thrilled to launch best-selling author Becky Wade last summer, and in May 2013 she’ll return with Undeniably Yours.

Historical romance may be slowing, but it’s not vanishing. In particular, Bethany House is excited for upcoming releases from established best-sellers such as Karen Witemeyer, Tracie Peterson and Mary Connealy, as well as more fiction from such new voices as Regina Jennings, Elizabeth Camden and Jen Turano. And we couldn’t be more thrilled by Lynn Austin’s return to biblical history with Return to Me, the first in her “Restoration Chronicles” series.

The challenges of the current market mean publishers are all trying new avenues, hoping not just to follow trends, but to start them as well. We’re among a number of publishers hoping that speculative faith fiction can reach a new generation. Fantasy author Anne Elisabeth Stengl has won two Christy Awards for her work, and the debut of Patrick W. Carr’s A Cast of Stones will make a splash in spring 2013.

The biggest trendsetters often arrive unexpectedly. We can’t be certain what will be the next Harbinger or Shack or who will be the next Beverly Lewis or Karen Kingsbury, but 2013 will arrive with countless great books. Wonderful stories with the power to change lives—that’s one trend that’s never going away.

Julie Klassen’s Bethany House novel The Girl in the Gatehouse received the 2012 Retailers Choice Award for Fiction: Historical Romance.

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