
Ashley has already published 10 books with Avon, and the new deal takes her publishing with the imprint through to 2023.
Congratulations, Phillipa! To read the full press release, click here.

Ethelred Tressider and his agent Elsie Thirkettle have been invited to lecture on a creative writing course at Fell Hall, a remote location in the heart of ragged countryside that even sheep are keen to shun. While Ethelred’s success as a writer is distinctly average, Elsie sees this as an opportunity to scout for new, hopefully more lucrative, talent. But heavy snow falls overnight, trapping those early arrivals inside, and tensions are quick to emerge between the assembled group.
When one of their number goes missing, Ethelred leads a search party and makes a gruesome discovery. With no phone signal and no hope of summoning the police, can Ethelred and Elsie identify the killer among them before one of them is next?
"An outrageously clever parody of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and all those other masters of the whodunit, Farewell My Herring – the ninth book in a series that it would be simply murder to miss – is the equivalent of a sparkling glass of champagne."
Lancashire Evening Post
Also published this week was Anna Jacobs' In Focus: When a new feature on Pete Newbury’s popular TV programme shows his adult image digitally transformed to that of a young child, Beth is shocked to realize that he’s her ‘baby’ brother, who vanished without trace thirty-eight years ago. Her mother has grieved ever since but bringing their family back together after so much heartache isn’t going to be easy. Pete Newbury’s is shocked to the core by the revelations the new segment brings to light. Has his whole life been a deception? |

"The swiftness with which McGilloway can go from one narrative thread to another so neatly and succinctly is a skill that familiar readers will be aware of but new readers will greatly appreciate. A writer of real intelligence has again created a work of fiction that is both real and emotive basing it within a very familiar world as the fear of a pandemic takes over, but a gripping and entertaining crime read of real nous and skill." Next to the Aisle blog
"What an enthralling, powerful, incredibly moving novel this is. Although a police procedural, Blood Ties does not feel like one." Irish Times
The Dressmaker of Paris, the sweeping debut by Georgia Kaufmann, was reviewed in the Historical Novel Society this week: "This is not my kind of book, the life story of a seamstress who becomes the millionaire owner of a fashion chain. Yet in a few pages I was hooked and read it to the end as quickly as life allowed ... The story is closely anchored in contemporary events, and we always know the date and place of every incident. It is difficult to believe that it is not an autobiography, but the author assures us that only one passage is autobiographical and then doesn’t say which. An outstanding debut novel." |

Stuart Turton's second novel, The Devil and the Dark Water has been optioned for television by Urban Myth Films. Rights were acquired from Emily Hayward-Whitlock at the Artists Partnership on behalf of Harry Illingworth, director at the DHH Literary Agency. Howard Overman will write the adaptation, with Turton on board as an executive producer.
Turton's debut, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Raven Books, 2018), was optioned by House Productions and is being adapted as a seven-part series for Netflix.
To read the full press release, click here.