Pennie Picks a Two-fer:
THE KITCHEN HOUSE
This month Costco’s book buyer, Pennie Clark Ianniciello, calls attention to a sleeper hit and its follow-up.
The influential Costco buyer is well known for bringing new attention to titles re-released in trade paperback, such as The Art Forger, The Orchardist and Beautiful Ruins, resulting in each book rising or making its debut on best seller lists.
This month she mixes it up, going back in time to a book first reviewed in the trades in 2009, Kathleen Grissom’s debut, The Kitchen House (S&S/Touchstone; OverDrive Sample), also setting up the author’s forthcoming second novel.
The Kitchen House is likely already in most collections. While the sleeper languished at first it became a huge book club hit based on the PR efforts of Grissom. So remarkable was its rise that in 2012 The Wall Street Journal ran a story on its rags to riches turn around (link may require a subscription).
Now Pennie is pushing it again, saying the antebellum story of a white indentured servant
has her “ready for Grissom’s follow-up novel,”
Glory Over Everything: Beyond the Kitchen House,(S&S; S&S Audio; April).
The Kitchen House is still in demand with
active holds at many libraries we checked and Glory Over Everything already showing
solid demand.