​We are back after an exhausting but entirely thrilling weekend of being at the inaugural Capital Crime Festival, held in Covent Garden. We had a bunch of authors appearing on panels and hosting talks, signing books and taking part in meet ‘n greets with fans - alongside legends such as Martina Cole, Lynda La Plante and Mark Billingham - and we had a blast!

We partnered with Capital Crime to host the New Voices Award, an award given to an undiscovered crime and thriller author to help further their publishing career. At Thursday’s launch event, it was announced that Ashley Harrison (who had flown over for the US just for this weekend!) had won for his novel Dysconnect. David Headley was so taken with the book that Ashley is now a part of the DHH Literary Agency - welcome, Ashley!

Also taking home an award this weekend was Stuart Turton for the audiobook of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. The award is a part of the Capital Crime / Amazon Publishing Awards and we are delighted for both Stuart and the audiobook’s narrator, Jot Davies. 

​Snow Kills by R.C. Bridgestock, has garnered a favourable review in NB magazine. “Snow Kills is intriguing and down to earth… ample indication that there is plenty of mileage in the Jack Dylan series.” To read the whole review, click here.

​The Daily Mail has reviewed L.C. Tyler’s The Maltese Herring, the eighth in the Elsie & Ethelred series: “The story whips along at a fair pace, pausing only for out-loud laughs. For those inclined to humour, it is a delight.” To read the whole review, click here.

​The cover for Eva Björg Ægisdóttir’s debut novel The Creak On the Stairs has been revealed and we are filled with anticipation for this fantastic, dark, Scandi-Noir novel to hit shelves in May 2020.
 
When a body of a woman is discovered at a lighthouse in the Icelandic town of Akranes, it soon becomes clear that she’s no stranger to the area. 

Chief Investigating Officer Elma, who has returned to Akranes following a failed relationship, and her colleagues Sævar and Hörður, commence an uneasy investigation, which uncovers a shocking secret in the dead woman’s past that continues to reverberate in the present day … 

But as Elma and her team make a series of discoveries, they bring to light a host of long-hidden crimes that shake the entire community. Sifting through the rubble of the townspeople’s shattered memories, they have to dodge increasingly serious threats, and find justice … before it’s too late. 

An exquisitely written, disturbing, claustrophobic and chillingly atmospheric thriller, The Creak on the Stairs is the first in an electrifying series, by one of Iceland’s most exciting new talents.
 
This title will be available for pre-order soon.

​Finally, HUGE congratulations to M.W. Craven who has had Japanese rights for both books in the Washington Poe series, The Puppet Show and Black Summer sold to Hayakawa in Japan, for a considerable five-figure sum. That’s fifteen territories for The Puppet Show and six for Black Summer - and counting!

PSST...!

Have you written a novel?

Would you like the chance to pitch it to one of the DHH agents with a view to getting valuable feedback?

Come and see us at PitchDHH in December, when we will be in Liverpool. Click here to find out more.

​Hello everyone, we hope you had a lovely weekend. Do anything nice? Gah, who are we kidding? You want to see the DHH News Roundup, don’t you? Don’t blame you.
 
Three brilliant cover reveals took place this week, so let us begin with them.
 
Jules Wake’s forthcoming Notting Hill In the Snow is the perfect way to gear yourself up towards the festive season.

It's mayhem in Bethlehem…unless they can work together!
Viola Smith plays the viola in an orchestra (yes really!), but this year she's been asked to stretch her musical talents to organising Notting Hill's local nativity.
Nate Williams isn't looking forward to Christmas but as his small daughter, Grace, has the starring role in the show, he's forced to stop being a Grinch and volunteer with Viola.
With the sparks between them hotter than the chestnuts roasting in Portobello market, Nate and Viola can't deny their feelings. And as the snow starts to fall over London, they find themselves trapped together in more ways than one…

This gorgeous book is out in eBook on 11 October and paperback on 12 December - pre-order by clicking the highlighted formats.

​Lastly, Coming Home To Winter Island, the next gorgeous novel from Jo Thomas. Set on a beautiful remote Scottish island, wrap up warm and dive in to your next favourite read.
 
Ruby's singing career is on the verge of hitting the big time, when her voice breaks. Fearing her career is over, she signs up for a retreat in Tenerife to recover.

But an unexpected call from a stranger on a remote Scottish island takes her on a short trip to sort out some family business. It's time to go and see the grandfather she's never met.
City girl Ruby knows she will be happy to leave the windswept beaches behind as quickly as she can, especially as a years-old family rift means she knows she won't be welcome at Teach Mhor.

But as she arrives at the big house overlooking the bay, she finds things are not as straightforward as she might have thought.
​
There's an unexpected guest in the house and he's not planning on going anywhere any time soon...
 
This winter warmer will be available in eBook on 31 October and paperback on 12 December. Pre-order by clicking on the highlighted formats.

Congratulations to Henrietta Heald whose book Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines was published this week.
 
This fascinating book recounts the extraordinary women who, in 1919, formed together to create the Women’s Engineering Society.
 
Henrietta will be appearing on Woman’s Hour on the 25 September and earlier this week appeared on BBC Radio Humberside. If you’d like to listen to the latter, please click this link (40 mins in).

We love this review from CrimeTime for Paul Johnston’s Impolitic Corpses, the eighth in the Quint Dalrymple mystery series set in Scotland. 

Paperback copies of Ragnar Jónasson’s The Island dropped in to the DHH office this week and we think we might be a little bit in love.
 
This is the second in the Hidden Iceland series staring DI Hulda Hermansdöttir and this format will be released on 3 October. 

​Finally, we are delighted that the shortlist for the DHH Literary Agency New Voices Award, in partnership with Capital Crime, was announced this week. In particular, congratulations to client Patti Buff, who is one of the shortlisted authors. Exclusively voted for by readers and those who have bought tickets to the inaugural Capital Crime festival, the winner will be announced on Thursday 26 September at the festival’s opening night drinks party.
 
Wishing the best of luck to all the shortlisted authors!

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle continues to collect more right sales, in the last week securing deals with Modernista in Sweden and Slovensky in Slovakia. 

​It was announced last week that client Jennifer Lucy Allan has been brought on as co-host on BBC Radio 3’s Night Tracks and Late Night Junction respectively.
 
The announcement comes as part of BBC Radio 3’s new autumn / winter programming alongside its schedule changes, new programmes and presenter signings.
 
Alan Davey, Controller of BBC Radio 3, said “We want Radio 3 to be a haven where listeners can come to take time out from today’s often-frenetic world and discover something new and follow it in depth.”
 
Jen has been a regular host on the show, however the move sees the role become a more permanent position. Congratulations, Jen!

​The Cliff House by Amanda Jennings is sitting pretty in the Heatseekers Chart for the fifth week running, Yes, that’s right - FIFTH! 

​Kobo are laying on a brilliant Tech Fiction & Thrillers Sale and alongside all the fabulous titles are JD Fennell’s SFF espionage WW2 thrillers, Sleeper and Sleeper: The Red Storm. Joining those are Paul Burston’s gripping psychological thriller The Closer I Get. All three are available for only 99p! You can download your copy by clicking on the titles above.

​While we’re on the subject of JD Fennell’s Sleeper series, we’d like to say a hearty, and much-deserved, congratulations on his shortlisting for the Wilbur Niso Smith Adventure Writing Prize, which took place last week.
 
It was a fabulous evening and we were all terribly proud of what this author has managed to achieve in just a couple of short years. 

​The finalists for the 2019 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have been revealed.
 
The competition, curated and judged by DHH clients Paul Joynson Hicks and Tom Sullam, celebrates funny animal antics and comic scenes of wildlife. To see the full announcement, click here.
 
Alongside this, we saw the cover for the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards Vol.3 revealed to the world and we’re not saying** we spent a good portion of the afternoon guffawing at its contents, but we easily could have done.
 
This rib-tickling book will be out on 3rd October 2019 and is available to pre-order now.
 
** we are definitely saying that

​Finally, we can finally show you the cover for Andrew Ewart’s forthcoming debut novel Forget Me (which we are SO excited about). 

​Your partner has had mysterious accident, leaving them with no memory.
 
They don’t remember anything: how you met, your first kiss, not even your wedding day.
 
An experimental medical treatment promises a cure. A chance to relive the memories.
 
Going through it might bring you back together.
 
But discovering the truth about the accident will tear you apart.
 
Do you walk away?
 
Or open Pandora’s box?
 
This achingly clever speculative psych thriller will be published in February 2020 by Orion but you can get ahead of the game and pre-order your copy here.

We’d like to kick this week’s news round-up with a delightful new signing. Welcome to DHH Literary Agency, Pen Avey!
 
Pen has joined Hannah Sheppard’s list and will be working with her on her debut novel.
 
You can find Pen on Twitter @PenAveyAuthor.

There were four DHH clients with books out last week:

• Bloodchild, the long-awaited final instalment of the Godblind trilogy by Anna Stephens
• Her Sister’s Secret by Eve Seymour, a tantalisingly twisty psychological thriller
• One Perfect Family by Anna Jacobs, an uplifting saga novel which is the fourth in the Ellindale series
• Death on the Rive Nord by Adrian Magson (eBook), which is the second in the Inspector Lucas Rocco series, the rights for which have been acquired by the Dome Press, and re-released complete with a re-edited text and newly designed cover

​With just under two months to go until the publication of Anita Frank’s debut The Lost Ones, we were thrilled to see this fantastic pre-pub quote from Kate Riordan, author of The Girl In the Photograph, The Stranger and The Shadow Hour.
 
“This is a proper gothic ghost story I really enjoyed… It’s full of atmosphere and properly creepy at times.”
 
It has also been revealed that with a release of 31st October, The Lost Ones will be Goldsboro Books’ Book of the Month for November. You can pre-order your signed first edition right here.

​Also wracking up the awesome pre-pub quotes is David Wragg’s forthcoming fantasy debut The Black Hawks (Articles of Faith: Book 1):
 
“Wragg captures the classic fantasy spirit of adventure and exploration, wraps it with stabbed backs and cannibals and gifts it to you on a bed of action.”
Ed McDonald, author of Blackwing
 
“Everyone loves a good mercenary tale, but The Black Hawks offers more besides: a protagonist who’s refreshingly rubbish at fighting, a supporting cast who’d be fascinating if they were just standing around in a supermarket, and an author who knows when to dodge clichés, and when to jump in and splash like a kid in a puddle.”
Nate Crowley, author of 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed)
 
“Check out The Black Hawks - it’s full of fun characters, mercenary antics, twists, turns, and contains my favourite fantasy lemon.”
Peter Newman, Gemmell Award-winning author of The Vagrant and The Deathless
 
“A remarkably assured debut… I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
Anna Stephens, author of Godblind
 
“A an extraordinary debut that is as humorous as it is dark… Wragg has a winner on his hands here. Highly recommended.”
James Tivendale, Grimdark Magazine
 
“Highly recommend this book, it’s great fun and really fast.”
Robin Carter, Parmenion Books
 
This already-highly acclaimed book will be out on 3rd October (pre-order here).

​We are delighted to finally be able to shout about the news that Eve Smith’s debut The Waiting Rooms has struck a deal with Orenda Books!
 
The Waiting Rooms takes place in the very near future where an antibiotic crisis has led to widespread death and a population in peril.
 
The debut was bought as part of a two-book deal, negotiated by Harry Illingworth.
 
To read more about the book and its acquisition, click here.

​We’ve got a couple of exciting cover reveals for you this week:

• Christmas In Peppercorn Street (Peppercorn Series: Book 5) by Anna Jacobs (October 2019)

 
Christmas is approaching but the mood on Peppercorn Street is anything but jolly. Claire is convinced her stalker ex will catch up with her and her young daughter, and Luke is finding that living with his estranged teenage daughter brings its own problems.
 
When a road accident bring them together, Luke impulsively offers them shelter in his home. Will this Christmas give them the best present of all: a new family? Or will Claire’s ex again cause trouble?

• Remember Me by Amy McLellan (November 2019)

 
Last night my sister was murdered. The police think I killed her.
 
I was there. I watched the knife go in. I saw the man who did it.
 
And heard him laugh because he knows he’ll never get caught.
 
He knows I have prosopagnosia - I can’t recognise faces.
 
And if I don’t find the man who killed my sister, I’ll be found guilty of murder.

​We’ve got some excellent eBook deals for you thanks to the good folk over at Kindle and Kobo respectively.
 
Phillipa Ashley’s Confetti at the Cornish Café and her alter-ego Ashley Croft’s The Love Solution are only 99p in the USA on Kindle for the entire month of September.
 
Also included in the September Kindle Monthly Deal are a plethora of Anna Jacobs titles:
The Honeyfield Bequest (£1.19)
Bay Tree Cottage (99p)
Elm Tree Road (£1.19)
Moving On (99p)
Cinnamon Gardens (£1.19)
 
Finally, in the September Kindle Monthly Deal are three of Ragnar Jónasson’s bestselling Dark Iceland series books:
Night Blind (99p)
White Out (99p)
Rupture (99p)
 
Over at Kobo, you can snap up Adrian Magson’s sixth Inspector Lucas Rocco book, Rocco and the Price of Lies for only 99p in their ’99 for 99p’ sale, running from 5th - 18th September.
 
You can buy your copy of all the books mentioned by clicking on the titles above.
 
As the autumnal nights draw in, and the temptation to snuggle up on the sofa under a blanket becomes increasingly impossible to resist, these are the perfect additions to your eReader.

Quick shout-out to client JD Fennell, whose book Sleeper: The Red Storm is shortlisted for the Wilbur Niso Smith Award for Best Published Novel 2019 - the winner is announced this week - good luck, JD, we’ll be there front and centre cheering you on!

Finally, we’d like to remind you all that our submissions for Pitch DHH: Liverpool are still open and we can’t wait to read your work!
 
If you’re a budding writer, have a story you’re working on, and would like feedback on, then why don’t you apply?? Click here for more info and instructions.
 
Good luck!

Orenda Books has snapped up Eve Smith's debut thriller in a two-book deal. 

Karen Sullivan, publisher of Orenda Books, acquired world English language rights for The Waiting Rooms and a second book, with the working title Off Target, in a two-book deal, negotiated with Harry Illingworth of DHH Literary Agency. The Waiting Rooms will be published in July 2020.

The Waiting Rooms, described by Sullivan as a "stunning piece of speculative fiction" by Sullivan, takes place in the very near future where an antibiotic crisis has led to widespread death and a population in peril. 

"Routine operations, even cancer treatment and Caesarean sections, are no longer possible and a simple scratch can be fatal. No one over 40 is allowed antibiotics, and if they become ill, they are sent to the ‘Waiting Rooms’ … ostensibly hospitals with no treatment," the synopsis reads. "There they can choose to have their lives terminated or suffer their infection and face inevitable death. A second plot line focuses on a nurse’s post-crisis search for her birth mother, which leads to a startling revelation that puts her family in danger."

Smith said: "I am so excited to be working with someone of Karen’s calibre on my debut novel The Waiting Rooms. I wanted to pitch normal family life into the aftermath of a real world crisis and, with the World Health Organisation predicting ten million deaths a year from antibiotic-resistant infections by 2050, I decided that scenario was one of the scariest. My near-future world, which legislates against the over-seventies in order to keep antibiotic resistance at bay, explores some controversial attitudes to old age and dying, inspired by my own family’s experiences."

Sullivan said: "At once a powerful page-turner, a devastatingly moving portrait of motherhood and old age, a shocking vision of our unquestionably uncertain future, and an exquisitely evocative and atmospheric journey to the wilds of South Africa, this is an eye-opening read and a simply stunning piece of speculative fiction.

"We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Eve to the team, and her wonderful debut showcases her passion, exceptional talent and impeccable research in a thriller that leaves us simultaneously breathless, terrified and wiser. The Waiting Rooms is the perfect fit for our growing list, and I feel honoured to publish this book."

Illingworth added: "I couldn’t be happier that Eve’s incredibly timely, and indeed terrifying, novel will be published by Orenda. Portraying a future that is all too believable, I believe readers will really connect with this beautifully written and moving story, and can’t wait to see it published with the passion and drive that Karen has built such a reputation around."

Taken from The Bookseller article | Katie Mansfield

We’re beginning our news roundup this week with a very exciting cover reveal…
 
The Mist is the third in the Hidden Iceland series, by Ragnar Jónasson, featuring DI Hulda Hermansdoöttir.
 
1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland.
 
The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn’t.
 
The couple should never have let him in. But they did.
 
An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda will be haunted forever.
 
This instalment in this fantastic series, reminiscent of Agatha Christie, with a Scandinavian twist, follows The Darkness and The Island and will be published in April 2020 by Michael Joseph. Pre-order your copy here.

Also revealed this week was the cover for Wartime for the Shop Girls, the second book in the warm and uplifting A Store At War series by Joanna Toye. 

Following the first book (of the same name as the series), once again we follow shop girl Lily Collins as she attempts to navigate her new role at Marlow's department store in the height of WW2. 

It’s 1942 and as shortages of staff – and goods – begin to bite, young Lily Collins is thrilled to step up to sales junior in her job at Marlow’s department store.

But bombs are still falling and Lily and fellow shop girls Gladys and Beryl need a stiff upper lip to wave boyfriends, husbands and brothers goodbye, especially with a baby on the way and grim news on the wireless. When Jim, who works with Lily at the store, seems restless, things are bad enough, but nothing can prepare Lily for the secrets that come tumbling out when her favourite brother comes home on leave…

Somehow, she must keep smiling through. Community, family and friends rally round as her home town – and the whole country – is tested once again.

The eBook will be available in October 2019, and the paperback in January 2020 from HarperCollins. 

​Janie Millman, author of romantic comedies Life’s A Drag and Sky’s the Limit (The Dome Press) was featured in last week’s French paper Le Resistant.
 
Her rib-tickling stories have gained fans all over the world (including novelist Armistead Maupin, as shown below!) and we cannot recommend these books enough. 

Allow us to tell you a bit more about them:
 
Life’s A Drag (The Dome Press, February 2017, £8.99 RRP)
Roz and Jamie have moved to leafy Suffolk from London in search of a quiet life so it is a surprise to find that the village is embarking on its riotous annual drag competition.
 
Fuelled by large quantities of alcohol and ubiquitous community spirit, they soon find themselves caught up in a battle for the identity of the village itself.
 
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Drew is fighting his own battle to save his club and the livelihoods of his closest friends. Though they seem worlds apart, it soon becomes clear that appearances are not everything and that sometimes human connections can surprise us. A heart-warming, romantic comedy.

Congratulations to Amanda Jennings whose The Cliff House is standing strong at No.1 in the Heatseekers Chart for a second week!
 
We love this haunting tale of friendship and the secrets kept within even the strongest of bonds.
 
Praise for The Cliff House:
 
“Haunting and evocative.” Clare Mackintosh
 
“A beautiful, stirring story of loss and obsession.” Lisa Jewell
 
“Absorbingly atmospheric… beautiful and sinister.” The Times
 
“A very special and utterly unforgettable tale of obsession, desire, grief and deceit - read it.” Heat
 
If you’ve yet to get your hands on this gorgeous book (seriously, where have you been?), you can buy a copy by clicking this link.