Happy Publication Day to two of our clients for last week!

Phillipa Ashley's new Cornish-set escape, An Endless Cornish Summer, was released in both eBook and paperback.

In addition, two of Adrian Magson's Rocco books, Death on the Pont Noir and Death at the Clos du Lac, were republished by Canelo and are now available in paperback format.

Phillipa has also written a short story for this week's issue of My Weekly​, titled 'Mabel's Recipe'. The issue is on sale until tomorrow. 

The second in M. W. Craven's Washington Poe series, Black Summer, has sold to Spring in Taiwan, for the Chinese language, the home of the first book, The Puppet Show. 

This brings Black Summer's foreign territories sale to eleven in total - congratulations, Mike!

We're welcoming a new client to the Agency this week:

Joining David Headley's list, Lisa Hilton is a bestselling author, historian, presenter and historical consultant. 

​​Her most recent book, Sex and the City of Ladies (Harper Collins, 2020) was commissioned by the Times Literary Supplement and casts a revisionist eye over the reputations of influential women throughout history whose deeds and dispositions have been distorted by centuries of misogyny.

Lisa has often taken inspiration from the lives of women who shaped the world, and has written six historical biographies in this theme, from Athenais: The Real Queen of France (Little, Brown, 2002 – shortlisted for the Somerset Maugham Prize), to The Horror of Love (Orion, 2011) – an account of Nancy Mitford’s scandalous affair with Gaston Palewski – and the authoritative Elizabeth, Renaissance Prince (Orion, 2014).

Alongside these works, Lisa has published three historical novels, including The House with Blue Shutters (Atlantic, 2010 – shortlisted for the Commonwealth Fiction Prize) and a History of Art book, The Death of Cleopatra (Skira, 2017), which sheds light on the beauty and ambiguity of Guido Cagnacci’s portrayal of the legendary queen of Egypt.

Find out more about Lisa here.

Finally, the cover for Carys Jones' forthcoming We Are All Liars was revealed last week and to say we *love* it would be a huge understatement. 

The DHH Literary Agency is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month with an expansion accompanied by a string of major debut writer deals signed through lockdown Zoom sessions.

The literary agency, overseen by m.d. and director David Headley, has grown from a team of five to seven, with translation rights moving in-house. Agent Helen Edwards has joined to work part-time on translation rights while continuing with her own agency, looking after US rights, while former Vintage sales director Tom Drake Lee has joined as associate agent, working across fiction and non-fiction. 

There have also been two staff recently promoted: agent Harry Illingworth became a director in December while Emily Glenister will combine her role as Headley’s assistant with being an associate agent. 

To accommodate its growth, the company has moved from its former headquarters at the Cecil Court London shop, Goldsboro Books, which Headley also runs, to Burleigh Mansion on Charing Cross Road. 

The last few months have seen the agency achieve a number of major deals with Victoria Selman's Truly, Darkly, Deeply pre-empted by Quercus for six figures while director Broo Doherty will see Victorian thriller The Planthunter by Thomas Mogford published as a lead title by Welbeck in February. Illingworth recently negotiated a six-figure pre-empt with Orbit for a fantasy trilogy by Richard Swan in a six-figure deal. 

The agency has also achieved a bumper crop of deals from its "Pitch DHH" Zoom sessions, through which it discovered new voices during lockdown. An event in December saw three authors scooped up now with major deals. Director Hannah Sheppard recently secured a pre-empt for Sarah Bonner’s debut while Glenister took on Heather Darwent from the same session, subsequently selling her debut thriller for a six-figure pre-empt to Viking. Vikki Patis was also taken on by Glenister from the same pitching session, her historical mystery was sold — under the pen name Victoria Hawthorne — to Quercus. 

Headley told The Bookseller of his pride in the company which turns 10 on 24th June, saying: “Celebrating 10 years of DHH is a proud achievement. It always feels an honour and privilege to represent amazing clients and their incredible stories. Seeing a manuscript develop into a book on bookshelves, particularly in Goldsboro, is always a thrill. We’ve had, as an agency, a very successful couple of years with clients winning major awards, achieving top 10 bestsellers and enjoying international successes."
​
He added that, like many other agencies, its authors' backlists proved fruitful over lockdown. "Whilst 2020 presented new challenges for us all we did see an increase in sales in our clients' backlist. The company is in a very strong position to grow and achieve greater successes for our clients.”

From The Bookseller article | Heloise Wood

Children's author Abi Elphinstone was interviewed by the Sunday Post this last weekend, about her writing process, and how she come up with her ideas. 

Abi's most recent book, The Crackledawn Dragon​, was released earlier this month.

Read the full article here. 

Huge congratulations to Ragnar Jónasson, whose new standalone thriller, The Girl Who Died, is a officially a Sunday Times​ Top 10 bestseller - a huge, and much deserved milestone in Ragnar's career, this is the first Icelandic novel to ever appear on this bestseller list!

M. W. Craven was interviewed last week by Cumbria Life magazine, where he answered questions about his daily routines as well as his writing process, and newly-released Washington Poe novel, Dead Ground, the fifth in the series. 

​The issue is on sale now.

Both Clare Whitfield's debut People of Abandoned Character and Stuart Turton's The Devil and the Dark Water, have been longlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2021. 

​The Award is judged by all of the team at Goldsboro Books, and is the only prize that rewards storytelling in all genres from romance, thrillers and ghost stories, to historical, speculative and literary fiction and is awarded annually to a 'compelling novel with brilliant characterisation and a distinct voice that is confidently written and assuredly realised'.

The shortlist of six will be announced on 5th August, with the winner, who will receive both £2,000 and a beautiful, handmade glass bell, to be announced on 30th September.

​To read more about the Award, click here.

The Devil and the Dark Water has also sold to Vulkan in Serbia, taking its foreign rights sales up to twenty.

Louise Beech's most recent book, This Is How We Are Human, is based on some very real people in her life, and as such, had to be handled as sensitively as possible. Last week, Louise spoke to Ireland's online Writing magazine about her process and how she found it. 

​Catch up here.

Brian McGilloway's The Last Crossing has been shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2021. 

​Awarded annually at Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, the Award is one of the UK's top crime-fiction awards, and sponsored by Theakston's Old Peculier. The shortlist will be announced in June, and the winner at the opening event for the Festival which, all being well, will go ahead on 22nd July.

​Publisher Stef Bierwerth has pre-empted with a significant six-figure offer UK & Commonwealth rights to Truly, Darkly, Deeply, the new standalone thriller by Victoria Selman via David Headley at DHH Literary Agency.

Truly, Darkly, Deeply tells the story of 12-year-old Sophie and her mother, Amelia-Rose, who move to London from Massachusetts where they meet the charismatic Matty Melgren, who quickly becomes an intrinsic part of their lives. But as the relationship between the two adults fractures, a serial killer begins targeting young women with a striking resemblance to Amelia-Rose.

When Matty is eventually sent down for multiple murders, questions remain as to his guilt – questions which ultimately destroy both women. Nearly twenty years later, Sophie receives a letter from Battlemouth Prison informing her Matty is dying and wants to meet. It looks like Sophie might finally get the answers she craves. But will the truth set her free – or bury her deeper?

Stef Bierwerth says, ‘I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Victoria Selman to Quercus. Truly, Darkly, Deeply is one of those thrillers that are very hard not to finish in one sitting. Brilliantly written from Sophie’s perspective and mainly set in 80s London, it’s a serial killer thriller of a very different kind that really gets under your skin. It’s an incredibly filmic novel that reminded me of watching TV series like Mindhunter and Matty Melgren is a character that is guaranteed to captivate readers. We will launch Truly, Darkly, Deeply as a flagship publication on our thriller list next summer.’

Victoria Selman says, ‘I’m hugely excited to be working with Stefanie Bierwerth and the Quercus team who have such enthusiasm for this book and an innate understanding of what I want to achieve with it. Truly, Darkly, Deeply has found the perfect home!’

Victoria Selman is the author of the critically acclaimed Ziba MacKenzie series and has been previously published by Thomas & Mercer. Her debut novel, Blood for Blood, was shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Debut Dagger Award and an Amazon Charts #1 bestseller for five weeks, selling over half a million copies. Victoria Selman writes for the Independent and co-hosts Crime Time FM with Barry Forshaw and Paul Burke.
​
Quercus is launching Truly, Darkly, Deeply in its first formats in July 2022.

Congratulations to our clients Clare Whitfield and Stuart Turton, who have both been longlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2021, for their novels, People of Abandoned Character and The Devil and the Dark Water, respectively.

Congratulations to Brian McGilloway, whose standalone, The Last Crossing, has been shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021. 

Happy Publication Day to these fabulous book, and their equally fabulous authors. All are available to buy now, and to find out more about each title, simply click on the book cover below.

• Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
• The Girl Who Died by Ragnar Jónasson
• The Crackledawn Dragon by Abi Elphinstone
• The Righteous by David Wragg

Ragnar Jónasson's was interviewed by The Times​' Debra Craine, and talks about how the moody, Nordic landscape has inspired both his work - and countless others. 

Last week, we received the incredible news that M. W. Craven's fourth Washington Poe book, Dead Ground, had gone into the No.7 spot in the Sunday Times ​bestseller list - after just one week of publication!

Not only that, but Swedish rights for this, and the third in the series, The Curator have gone to Modernista; The Curator has also sold to Roca Editorial in Spain; and Czech rights Dead Ground have gone to the home of the first three books, Dobrovsky. 

​An incredible week - congratulations, Mike!

Eva Björg Ægisdóttir's debut, The Creak on the Stairs, has sold to Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch in Germany.

In addition, the second in the series, Girls Who Lie, has also sold to Kiepenheuer & Witsch as well as Lesa Press in Israel, for rights in the Hebrew language.

We're kicking off this week's DHH News Roundup with a couple of lovely Kindle Monthly Deals for June. Simply click on the image below to take you straight to the deal:

We are delighted to welcome Lizzie Enfield to the Agency, who joins Broo Doherty's list. 

​​Lizzie Enfield is a journalist and regular contributor to national newspapers, magazines and radio. She began her career as a reporter and producer for BBC radio and continued to report after going freelance.

She has written five novels (the latest two as Elizabeth) one non-fiction title and had short stories broadcast on Radio Four and published in various magazines and anthologies. She also teaches creative writing and journalism.

The cover for Anna Jacobs' forthcoming wintry wonderland of a book, A Very Special Christmas​, was revealed last week:

The fourth in M. W. Craven's much-loved Washington Poe series, Dead Ground, was published last week in hardback and eBook. 

​Detective Sergeant Washington Poe is in court, fighting eviction from his beloved and isolated croft, when he is summoned to a backstreet brothel in Carlisle where a man has been beaten to death with a baseball bat. Poe is confused - he hunts serial killers and this appears to be a straightforward murder-by-pimp - but his attendance was requested personally, by the kind of people who prefer to remain in the shadows.

As Poe and the socially awkward programmer Tilly Bradshaw delve deeper into the case, they are faced with seemingly unanswerable questions: despite being heavily vetted for a high-profile job, why does nothing in the victim's background check out? Why was a small ornament left at the murder scene - and why did someone on the investigation team steal it? And what is the connection to a flawlessly executed bank heist three years earlier, a heist where nothing was taken...

​Order your copy here. 

Finally, we were delighted to see Ragnar Jónasson's forthcoming The Girl Who Died selected by The Times as one of their 'Best Books of 2021'.

Published this Thursday 10th June from Michael Joseph. Pre-order your copy here.