Monday, January 27, 2014

Hard Case Crime Update

Hard Case Crime Announces Two New Editions 
of Stephen King's #1 Best-Seller, JOYLAND

Edgar Award-nominated novel to be published in 
mass-market paperback and e-book


New York, NY; London, UK (January 27, 2014) – Hard Case Crime, the award-winning line of pulp-styled crime novels published by Titan Books, today announced it will release two new editions of Stephen King's JOYLAND, the acclaimed coming-of-age story set in 1973 in a small-town amusement park that is the scene of an unsolved murder. First published last June, and recently named a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award (the mystery genre's most prestigious honor), JOYLAND has appeared on the New York Times Best-Seller list for more than 24 weeks. On May 27, Hard Case Crime will publish the book for the first time in the classic rack-sized "mass-market" paperback format typical of pulp crime novels in the 1940s and 50s. The company will also release the novel for the first time in an e-book edition, in April 2014.

"Joyland is a look back at a long-gone time, and I wanted people's initial experience of the book to be like my experiences reading crime stories when I was growing up, back when a book was always something made of paper and ink and glue," said Stephen King, one of the most beloved storytellers of all time, with more than 300 million books in print. "I'm thrilled that Hard Case Crime is going back to its roots with a paperback edition that'll fit in your jacket or the back pocket of your jeans. And now that Joyland is coming up on its second year, I'm also happy to bring it out as an ebook for people who prefer reading that way."

Since its publication, JOYLAND has won raves worldwide. The Washington Post called it "a moving, immensely appealing coming-of-age tale" while Canada's National Post called it "a small marvel of a book, a novel of loss and heartbreak, of growth and discovery…one of the writer's finest works." Entertainment Weekly called it "some of King's most graceful writing"; the New York Times wrote, "The book delivers chills [and] a mournful sense of life's fragility"; and the Guardian in the U.K. called it "a far gentler, deeper, more thoughtful book…and all the more intriguing for it." 

Described as "the best new American publisher to appear in the last decade" by Neal Pollack in The Stranger, Hard Case Crime revives the storytelling and visual style of classic pulp fiction. The line features an exciting mix of lost pulp masterpieces from some of the most acclaimed crime writers of all time and gripping new novels from the next generation of great hardboiled authors, all with new painted covers in the grand pulp style. Authors have included James M. Cain, Mickey Spillane, Pete Hamill, Madison Smartt Bell, Lawrence Block, Ed McBain, and Donald E. Westlake, to whom JOYLAND is dedicated. Stephen King's first Hard Case Crime novel, The Colorado Kid, also became a national bestseller and inspired the television series "Haven" on SyFy.

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