SURPRISE!! (maybe?): Twelve more Furrowed Middlebrow titles from Dean Street Press, coming August 2022

A couple of weeks ago, when I absolutely played it cool and made the very restrained, understated announcement that we'd be releasing (no big deal) a previously unpublished, long-thought-lost novel from ELIZABETH FAIR in our summer batch (see here if you missed my laid-back reveal or want to relive its mellow subtleties), I mentioned that although it was taking a bit longer than usual to finalize our other summer titles, that additional announcement would be coming soon.

Well, "soon" has arrived.

And I'm certain that the announcement of these 12 new additions to our list will come as an enormous surprise to you all. It's not like I've mentioned them here and on Twitter a million times lately or anything.

Ready? Brace yourself.

That's right. Come August, we're releasing new FM editions of NOEL STREATFEILD's 12 delightful "romances" under the pseudonym SUSAN SCARLETT, originally published 1939-1951 and subsequently out of print for decades until the brilliant Shirley Neilson at Greyladies Books rediscovered them in the early 2010s (yet another thank you I owe to Shirley for her astonishing knowledge and prescience in unearthing treasures). As many of you have pointed out in the past couple of months when I've written about the novels' charms, even those reprints, now out of print as well, have become challenging (and costly) to track down. But in August they'll finally be available again at the click of a mouse—and (lucky you) for rather less than I had to spend to get hold of them myself!

As I mentioned in my intro to the books a few months ago, Streatfeild seems to have felt considerable embarrassment over these "romances", as opposed to her sixteen other "literary" novels for adults (currently available in e-book from Bello Books). But she certainly needn't have. In these books, she promptly mastered yet another genre, the cheerful romance, and proved herself adept and irresistibly entertaining at it. The books overflow with charm and cheer, and feature marvelous detail about everything from department store detectives and holiday camp theatricals to the film industry, a wartime munitions factory, and (of course) the ballet. All accompanied by rich supporting characters, entirely believable and amusing families, and page-turning romance. Not to mention the fashion!

You may not gasp with surprise at how these novels' plots unfold, and you won't be likely to mistake them for Dostoevsky, but I can think of no better brain candy to give you a break from the bleak world news. Which, I might add, is what led me back to them a few months ago. Although all my posting and tweeting about them the past couple of months might make it seem as though I was already premeditating reprints of these, I actually had no such idea at all initially. I needed escape, remembered how much fun I'd had with a few of these when Shirley first released them, and my motive was purely medicinal. It was only after reading several and seeing how they had managed to brighten even the darkest days, that I thought perhaps some shiny new Furrowed Middlebrow editions of them might be in order. Rupert at Dean Street Press got on the trail of the rights, and voila!

However guiltily and inadvertently, Streatfeild here raised shameless, delicious escapism to the level of an art form. And come August they'll be just what the doctor ordered for your much-needed holiday from reality.