A “handful of female players control the fate of the British book industry,” writes Vanessa Thorpe in a report for The Observer. Women such as Caroline Michel, Amanda Ridout and Victoria Barnsley, who all work for HarperCollins “are the women who decide what you will be reading next year.” But, says Thorpe, “‘sisterhood,’ it seems, is not always the right word to describe this tight network of top businesswomen,” and after a series of expensive and high-profile deals didn’t pan out too well, “tensions between at least three of the most influential women in publishing have reached breaking point.”