Santillana Follows Trend Toward Genre Fiction

By Carmen Ospina -- Críticas, 2/15/2006

As the Latino book market develops, more and more publishers are trying out genre fiction, hoping that Hispanics will be as interested as their English-speaking counterparts in formulaic novels.

This March, Spain’s Santillana hopes to cash in on the trend started by Harlequin and HarperCollins by launching SUMA in the States, an imprint specializing in originals and translations of mystery, thriller, and romance novels. Harlequin, a long-time publisher of romance in Spanish, launched a chick lit line for Spanish-speaking Latinas in 2004. Last October, HarperCollins inaugurated its Mass Market en Español program, becoming the first major U.S. publisher to translate a series of best-selling romance, thriller, and mystery novels into Spanish.

Published in hardcover and priced at $19.95, SUMA books combine passionate plots with high-quality writing and presentation. Santillana USA will release one SUMA title per month, starting with La llave maestra (The Master Key) by Spain’s Agustín Sánchez Vidal. Spanning five centuries, this historical thriller about the secrets behind an ancient scroll has sold more than 25,000 copies in Spain since its release in April 2005.

Subsequent titles include Kelly Jones’s romance El séptimo unicornio (The Seventh Unicorn) and Camposanto, a first novel by Spain’s Iker Jiménez, which has been compared to The Da Vinci Code for its mix of murder, conspiracy, and the work of 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. SUMA’s catalog also includes best-selling U.S. authors like Jeffery Deaver, Dean Koonz, and Janet Evanovich, as well as controversial writers like Melissa P. (One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed).