Headline has acquired two new novels by women's fiction writer Erin Green, the first of which centres on three strangers on holiday. 

Senior commissioning editor Kate Byrne struck the deal with David Headley at DHH Literary Agency. 

The first novel, New Beginnings at Rose Cottage, will be published in 2019. It tells the story of Benni, Emma and Ruth, each embarking on a solo holiday at Rose Cottage in Devon where "friendship and home comforts" are guaranteed. "Could they each have the happiest of holidays amongst strangers?" ponders the book's blurb. 

Byrne said: "I absolutely love the warmth of Erin's writing. She has a wonderful, engaging voice and a knack for relatable, vivid characterisation across the generations. I'm thrilled she is bringing her new women's fiction novels to Headline."

Green, who previously published three novels with Head of Zeus imprint Aria, said: "I'm delighted by the warm welcome into the Headline family. My imagination and creativiy embraces the opportunity for 'New Beginnings', much like my female characters in New Beginnings at Rose Cottage."

Follow Erin on Twitter: @ErinGreenAuthor

(Taken from The Bookseller article | Katherine Cowdrey)

​The tree is up, the nights have well and truly drawn in, the office Christmas party has been and gone… We can’t quite believe it, but it appears to be that time of year already.
 
The last twelve months have flown by and what a busy twelve months they’ve been! We thought it only fitting to do a bumper DHH News Roundup from the last two weeks.
 
Sunflowers In February by Phyllida Shrimpton has been shortlisted for the Centurion Book Awards 2019, and Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone has been longlisted for the Berkshire Book Awards 2019.
 
New client Micaiah Johnson’s debut novel The Space Between Worlds has been bought in a pre-empt by Hodder & Stoughton, in a deal negotiated by Harry Illingworth on behalf of Cameron McClure at Donald Maass Liiterary Agency. Read the full press release here.
 
As is custom at the end of any given year, ‘Best Books 2018’ have been flying around, and we are very pleased to see some fab DHH titles on some of them. Laura Wilson for the Guardian chose both The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton and Resin by Ane Riel as two of her best crime books of 2018; Seven Deaths was also picked by bestselling author Val McDermid for the Guardian and Barry Forshaw for the Financial Times; Wrecker by Noel O’Reilly was selected by Elizabeth Buchan for the Daily Mail as one of the top historical picks and none other than Ian Rankin chose The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson as one of his books of the year over on ianrankin.net.

​Congratulations to both Ronnie Turner and R.C. Bridgestock, whose respective books Lies Between Us and Consequences were published over the last couple of weeks (the former in paperback and the latter in eBook). 

​Lucinda Hawksley appeared in BBC4’s Charles Dickens and the Invention of Christmas. Missed it? Fear not - you can catch up here.
 
Who I Am, the second psychological thriller from Sarah Simpson has been trending at No. 1 over on Kobo this week, with her debut novel Her Greatest Mistake trending at No. 4. Not a bad end to the year, Sarah!
 
You may remember we held our Pitch DHH: York event at the beginning of December, and as a result, we’re very pleased to welcome Julia Lund to the Agency. Julia met, and pitched to, Hannah Sheppard. Julia can’t remember a time when she didn’t think up stories (her dad used to call her a mythomaniac), and from the moment she could read, the devoured them. Now, she gets to write them and can’t quite believe she hasn’t made that up too. Her Twitter is @Ju1iaLund. Welcome, Julia!

Delighted for Erin Green who, it was announced today, has signed a two-book deal with Headline in a deal negotiated by David H Headley and Senior Commissioning Editor Kate Byrne. The first book, New Beginnings at Rose Cottage, will be published in July 2019.

​Finally, we have two cover reveals for you. First up, Keris Stainton’s next book The One Who’s Not the One. A hilarious rom com about love, break-ups and finding out who you really are, The One Who’s Not the One will published by Bookouture in February 2019.
 
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Cat’s life has hit a brick wall. Since she broke up with her ex Sam five years ago she’s quit stand-up comedy, landed in a steady but dull job and lives in a tiny flat with roommates she knows only as The One Who Eats All My Food and The One Who Has Really Loud Sex.
 
Cat, by contrast, is vividly aware that she hasn’t had sex for over two years.
 
So when she bumps into old friend Harvey and sparks fly, Cat is surprised. The more time she spends with Harvey, the more their chemistry grows - but Cat knows she has to ignore her feelings.
 
Because Harvey is Sam’s brother, and so absolutely, 100% off-limited romantically. If only Cat didn’t keep forgetting that…
 
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Secondly, the paperback publication of Lulah Ellender's Elisabeth's Lists is the 7th March 2019 and the cover for this was revealed today! The hardback was published in March 2018 by Granta Books and was hailed as "hauntingly beautiful" by the Guardian, "a moving evocative read" by the Sunday Express and "charming" by novelist Damian Barr. 

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​Many years after the death of her grandmother, Lulah Ellender inherited a curious object - a book of handwritten lists.

On the face of it, Elisabeth's lists seemed rather ordinary - shopping lists, items to be packed for a foreign trip, a tally of the eggs laid by her hens. But from these everyday fragments, Lulah began to weave together the extraordinary life of the grandmother she never knew - a life lived in the most rarefied and glamorous of circles, from Elisabeth's early years as an ambassador's daughter in 1930s China, to her marriage to a British diplomat and postings in Madrid under Franco's regime, post-war Beirut, Rio de Janeiro and Paris. But it was also a life of stark contrasts - between the opulent excess of embassy banquets and the deprivations of wartime rationing in England, between the unfailing charm she displayed in public and the dark depressions that blanketed her in private, between her great appetite for life and her sudden, early death.

Throughout Elisabeth's adult life, the lists were a source of structure and comfort. And now, as Lulah learns that she is losing her own mother, she finds herself turning to her grandmother's life, and to her much-travelled book of lists, in search of meaning and solace.

Elisabeth's Lists is both a vivid memoir and a moving study of the familial threads that binds us, even beyond death.

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​And that’s it for 2018! Thank you so much to our authors, the readers of our authors, publishers and everyone else in between who has made this year truly brilliant.
 
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, from all at DHH Literary Agency.

Hodder & Stoughton has pre-empted a commercial science fiction novel, The Space Between Worlds from debut author Micaiah Johnson, with US rights selling at auction to Crown.

Commissioning editor Sam Bradbury pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Canada to the novel. The deal was negotiated by Harry Illingworth at DHH Literary Agency, on behalf of Cameron McClure at Donald Maass Literary Agency. US rights for the debut were sold at auction to Julian Pavia and Angeline Rodriguez at Crown and they plan a simultaneous publication in spring 2020. Financial details were not disclosed. 

Pitched as a cross between “Mad Max” and Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter (Pan Macmillan) "but so much more, the novel uses the concept of multiple realities to explore social issues like race, poverty, and sexuality”, Hodder & Stoughton said.

Set in a world where travelling between parallel earths has become possible, there is just one problem in that no one can visit an earth where they are still alive, the blurb reads. Born in the wastelands outside of Wiley City, Cara is dead in all but eight of the 382 worlds that have been unlocked. Now she has got a job travelling the ‘multiverse', but the information Cara gathers on other earths reveals terrible truths about the nature of her own world meaning she faces a harrowing choice: should she risk everything she's worked for to expose the truth?

Johnson was raised in a Jehovah’s Witness community in the Southern California desert. She graduated high school at the age of 13, received her MFA from Rutgers-Camden, and is currently studying race and robots as a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt. 

Bradbury said: “I am so thrilled to be publishing this incredible, extremely commercial, high-concept sci-fi novel, with heart, intelligence and insight. I absolutely adored this book – it’s one of the most impressive novels I’ve received on submission since I joined Hodder, and I’m amazed by Micaiah’s ability to discuss real world issues whilst also never missing a beat on plot, character and world-building.”

Illingworth said: “The concept alone of this ambitious novel excited me, and Micaiah pulled it off with pitch perfect execution. This is a very special debut indeed; smart, accessible and a huge amount of fun.”

“I’ve always travelled between disparate landscapes – moving between my father’s family in Detroit, my mother’s in rural towns in Arkansas and Illinois, and the Mojave Desert I call home," Johnson said. "Writing The Space Between Worlds allowed me to capture that feeling, alternately delightful and disorienting, of being in a place where everything seems new and different.”

​Follow Micaiah on Twitter: @micaiah_johnson

(Taken from The Bookseller article | Heloise Wood)

​Starting off this week’s news roundup with a big THANK YOU to all of the pitchers who attended our Pitch DHH: York event on Saturday 1st December (we’re a bit early with this news piece, but it was so much fun, we simply can’t wait!). The event was held at the Dean Court Hotel, overlooking the stunning York Minster and we absolutely loved meeting every single one of the writers who came to pitch their books to the DHH agents. We hope you all got as much out of the day as you could, enjoyed yourself and most importantly - found it helpful!
 
For anyone who missed out on the chance to attend Saturday’s pitching event, we will be holding another session next year, so do keep your eyes peeled…!

​We’re welcoming a new client to the DHH Literary Agency this week - hello Clare Riley Whitfield! Clare joins David H Headley’s list and in her own words, is “the wife of a tattoo artist, mother of a small benign dictator and relies on a black Labrador for emotional stability”. Her fiction has appeared on Spelk; Commuter-Lit; the University of Winchester Journal; Alfred; UoW Anthology; Litmus 2017 and Matt Shaw’s Masters of Horror. 

Darksoul by Anna Stephens received a glowing review from Publishers Weekly this week: “Elegant, evocative prose, intense action, and plenty of emotional twists… a story that her fans will find irresistible.” To read the whole review, click here.
 
Netgalley revealed the Book of the Year this year, and our very own The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton was chosen! Congratulations, Stu!
 
Last week, on Simon Mayo’s podcast, bestselling author Ian Rankin recommended The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson. He’s clearly got brilliant taste… The book is the first in Ragnar’s new ‘Hidden Iceland’ series, featuring Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir. To listen to the entire podcast, click here.

There are but 18 shopping days left until Christmas (seriously, how quickly has this one come around?) and we’ve got just the gift: The Wren by Stephen Moss, a year-in-the-life biography that reveals the hidden secrets of this fascinating, paradox of a bird that lives right on our doorstep. This beautiful bestselling edition would sit nicely alongside Stephen’s previous book, The Robin. Just saying… 

And finally, congratulations to Jo Thomas, whose new book, A Winter Beneath the Stars was published last week in paperback. The perfect winter warmer, take a journey to Tellfors in Swedish Lapland and follow Halley as she attempts to save a wedding from disaster, on a journey of a lifetime. “A sparkling, heartwarming, hug of a story” (Miranda Dickinson); “Magically romantic… a book that wraps its arms around you and pulls you in” (Milly Johnson).