Headline acquires two new Ann Granger novels

December 6, 2024 Intern BlakeFriedmann

Headline Books has signed two new novels by beloved crime writer Ann Granger. Editor Clare Foss acquired World English Language volume rights from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.

The first, DEATH ON THE PROWL, which was published on 5th December, is the eighth Cotswold village mystery featuring detective duo Campbell and Carter, and the second novel will be the next instalment in Ann’s Victorian crime series, featuring Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ben Ross and his wife Lizzie. The latter is set to be published in December 2025.

Having been published by Headline for nearly thirty-five years, Ann is one of their longest-standing crime writers and they have sold well over a million copies of her novels. Headline are also releasing ebook editions of the Mitchell and Markby series and Fran Varady series for the first time in the USA.

Ann Granger says ‘I am very fortunate to have been a client of a first-class agency in Blake Friedmann for so many years, and I’m delighted that my long and happy association with Headline will continue.’

Clare Foss says: ‘We are absolutely delighted to continue our long and happy association with one of our best-loved crime writers. As well as seeing both these series flourish, we are delighted to be releasing the ebooks of Ann’s ever-popular Mitchell and Markby series and Fran Varady series for the first time in the USA with exciting brand-new covers designed to appeal to the digital market.’

Isobel Dixon said: ‘I’m thrilled that, as we head towards Ann’s 35th year being published by Headline, we have a new two-book deal. Ann is a marvel, and a joy to work with, and I know her fans will be as delighted as we are that there are more books to come – and now American readers can also catch up with her other beloved characters – Fran Varady, and Mitchell and Markby.’

About Ann Granger

Ann Granger lives near Oxford. Over decades she has created a wonderful range of series characters, all featuring insightful characterisation and satisfying plotting. Ann has written over thirty murder mysteries, including the Mitchell & Markby Mysteries, the Fran Varady Mysteries, the Victorian Inspector Ben Ross and Lizzie Martin Mysteries and the Campbell and Carter Mysteries. Published in 10 languages, her German editions have sold millions of copies and have made more than 30 appearances in the Top 5 bestseller lists.

Praise for Ann Granger

‘Deft plotting, elegant descriptive prose, delicate comic touch, endearing eccentric characters.’ –Publishers Weekly

‘Granger writes in the best tradition of Agatha Christie and classic crime stories’ – Woman Space

‘Granger’s deft touch raises her above the competition and her finely drawn characters are affecting and believable… Something quite special.’ – Crime Time

‘Anyone who enjoys crime stories featuring credible characters in action in a recognizable real world… will lap up the work of Ann Granger.’ – Oxford Mail

‘Classic… a good feel for understated humour, a nice ear for dialogue.’ – The Times

Hannah Lowe wins the 2024 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award

November 30, 2023 Intern BlakeFriedmann

We are delighted to announce that Costa Book Award-winner Hannah Lowe has been awarded the highly prestigious 2024 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award. She received the award, along with Alia Trabucco Zerán, at a reception at the British Library on 29 November.

The award recognises two writers in the early stages of a new book relating to the Americas, and offers the writers a residency at the British Library – with access to the Library’s extensive Americas collection – as well as a £20,000 grant to complete their works. Hannah will also have the chance to appear at future Hay Festival editions with her published work in Wales, Columbia, Mexico and Peru, and the opportunity to work with the Eccles Centre to develop and facilitate activities and events related to her research at the British Library. The award is now in its 13th year, and with previous winners including Olivia Laing, John Burnside and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo.

Polly Russell, Head of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, said ‘We could not be more excited to support Hannah Lowe and Alia Trabucco as the 2024 Eccles-Hay Writer’s Award winners. Both their projects – one focussed on the Chinese population of the Caribbean and the other on Latin American identity – promise to explore untapped British Library Americas collections and to uncover aspects of Latin American and Caribbean culture and history that have been much overlooked. We look forward to welcoming them to the Library and supporting their work as they delve into the Library’s rich holdings.’

Hay Festival International Director, Cristina Fuentes La Roche said: ‘We are delighted to award the grants to two writers that explore shifting identities, belonging and its meanings in today´s world, and that would link up their literary project with the work of amazing writers and researchers from the British Library archives… Hannah Lowe´s [project] looks into the past, more specifically her own family, exploring race, colonial complexities and the legacy of the British Empire. We can´t wait to learn about their explorations and findings at the archives.’

Hannah’s submitted work for the award was a lyrical, hybrid memoir, with the working title of MOY: In Search of Nelsa Lowe. It uses the intimate story of her Chinese Jamaican aunt – a folk healer, amputee, hostess of a famous waterfront restaurant, and ‘madam’ of a portside brothel – as a pathway to exploring the history of the Chinese in Jamaica, women’s sexual labour, and the culture of folk healing.

The judges said ‘We were enthralled by Hannah Lowe’s inventive approach to conjuring Nelsa, her Afro-Chinese Jamaican aunt. Remarkably, Lowe evokes Nelsa through a single portrait photo and along the way excavates other marginalised women whose lives are rarely noted in official archives.’

About Hannah Lowe

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. Her 2021 poetry collection, THE KIDS, won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2021 after winning the Costa Poetry Award. It was also shortlisted for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize, was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn 2021 and an Irish Times and Guardian poetry book of the year.

Her first book-length collection, CHICK, won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. Her second full-length collection, CHAN, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016, followed by a pamphlet, THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (Out-Spoken Press) in 2019. Her prose memoir, LONG TIME NO SEE, exploring her relationship with her half-Chinese, half-Jamaican immigrant father, was published by Periscope in 2015.

Praise for THE KIDS

‘This is a playful yet moving collection that will make the reader frown and laugh, sometimes both at once.’ – Mary Jean Chan, The Guardian, ‘The Best Recent Poetry’

‘Lowe’s social conscience, grounded register and frank humanity recall Tony Harrison...’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph

‘Hannah Lowe's brilliant and entertaining book of sonnets, THE KIDS, is one of the most humorous and tender collections of recent times.’ – Sean Hewitt, The Irish Times, ‘Best poetry of 2021’

‘THE KIDS is the real deal. A page turner about the experience of teaching and being taught, it made us want to punch the air with joy... A contemporary book that buzzes with life while re-energising the sonnet that Shakespeare would recognise. All readers will find something of themselves here.’ – Costa Poetry Award Judges Rishi Dastidar, Ian Duhig and Maya Jaggi

‘A book to fall in love with – it’s joyous, it’s warm and it’s completely universal. It’s crafted and skilful but also accessible… I felt the centre of gravity in the room was with THE KIDS because it fulfils everything that the Costa Book of the Year should be. It’s very readable, very accessible, broad appeal, it’s the sort of book that you could hand to anybody because you would know that everyone would get something out of it… It is a book of poetry, it’s a book of sonnets, but Hannah Lowe is in no way constrained by the form of the poetry. The language just speaks very directly to the reader. It’s a very audacious, utterly successful book, I think, because it’s taking a classical art form, that goes back hundreds of years, and making it bang up-to-date, completely contemporary. We all thought it was so fresh and original.’ – Reeta Chakrabarti, chair of Costa Prize judges

Visit Hannah’s website

Follow Hannah on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram

Three more Elizabeth Chadwick novels for Sphere

November 23, 2023 Intern BlakeFriedmann

Sphere have acquired three more historical fiction titles by Elizabeth Chadwick in a World English language deal struck with Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann.

Elizabeth Chadwick is a prize-winning historical novelist and New York Times bestseller, published in 22 languages, with over 1 million copies of her work sold in the UK alone. THE ROYAL REBEL, the first of her new novels, is slated for September 2024 and tells the story of Jeanette, a young royal who refused to let history happen to her, defying the odds – as well as war, plague, and even her king – to blaze her own trail and be reunited with the man she loved.

Molly Walker-Sharp said: ‘Elizabeth Chadwick is renowned for her ability to sweep readers away to a time and place they can hardly imagine, and these novels are no exception. We are so proud to be working hand-in-hand with her to introduce readers to two headstrong heroines that time has all but forgotten.’

Elizabeth Chadwick said: ‘I am so delighted to be working with my wonderful editor Molly-Walker-Sharp and the team at Sphere on this contract for three historical novels set in the fourteenth century – a time of massive social and political upheaval, including a devastating pandemic that has so many parallels with our lives today. At the heart of the novels are two women: Jeanette – known mostly to history as Joan of Kent – a remarkable young woman, pressed by her family into moulds of expectation that she was always going to break, and Katherine Swynford, royal mistress, often vilified in her own time, but a woman of influence, indomitable strength and lasting fascination.’

Isobel Dixon said: ‘Elizabeth Chadwick has an uncanny knack of identifying fascinating historical figures and bringing them vividly to life, enthralling readers in many countries and languages. I am delighted that Sphere will be bringing the stories of Jeanette and Katherine to her fans on both sides of the Atlantic and further round the world.’

Elizabeth’s previous novel, THE KING’S JEWEL, was published in hardback by Sphere in April 2023 with the paperback edition to be published in April 2024.

About Elizabeth Chadwick

Elizabeth Chadwick lives in Nottingham with her husband and two sons. Her historical research is meticulous. She works with primary and secondary sources, visits the locations and for many years has been a member of Regia Anglorum, an early medieval re-enactment society with emphasis on accurately recreating the past. She tutors in the skill of writing historical and romantic fiction.

Elizabeth won a Betty Trask Award for THE WILD HUNT, her first novel, and has been shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Award several times, winning in 2011 for TO DEFY A KING. THE SCARLET LION was selected by Historical Novel Society founder Richard Lee as one of his 'Ten Landmark Historical Novels of the Last Decade'.

Praise for Elizabeth Chadwick

‘An author who makes historical fiction come gloriously alive.’ – The Times

‘I rank Elizabeth Chadwick with such historical novelist stars as Dorothy Dunnett and Anya Seton.’ – Sharon Kay Penman

‘When I read Elizabeth Chadwick's novels I always feel as if I'm looking through a window onto actual historical events, her writing is so vivid, and her research so superb.’ – Jane Johnson

‘Chadwick's depiction of the Middle Ages is sure and subtle, and her skill in imagining the private conversations that lead to the great decisions of their time is enjoyable.’ – Publisher’s Weekly

‘Chadwick’s research is impeccable, her characters fully formed and her storytelling enthralling.’ – The Historical Novel Review

Follow Elizabeth Chadwick on Twitter and Instagram.

Visit Elizabeth Chadwick’s website.

Deon Meyer’s LEO storms the South African charts

November 17, 2023 Intern BlakeFriedmann

Congratulations to Deon Meyer – whose new novel LEO celebrates its fourth consecutive week at the top of the official South African charts, having sold more than 2,500 copies in its first week and continuing to dominate the bestseller lists ever since.

LEO marks the return of Meyer’s iconic detectives Benny Griessel – now also the star of the new 5-part M-Net series DEVIL’S PEAK – and his police detective partner Vaughn Cupido. LEO follows on from 2020’s DONKERDRIF (English title: THE DARK FLOOD), which won the Adult Fiction prize at the 2021 SA Book Awards, and was longlisted for the prestigious CWA International Dagger. LEO is published in South Africa by Human & Rousseau; the English translation, by K. L. Seegers, will be out with Hodder in the UK in 2024.

In Meyer’s trademark style, LEO weaves together several seemingly unconnected strands into a tense and gripping investigation. A young female student is found dead on a mountain trail near the university town of Stellenbosch, where Benny and Vaughn have been demoted and sent to work at the local police station. In the north of the country, a beautiful wildlife guide with a mysterious past is recruited by a group of special forces soldiers to act as a honeytrap, part a dangerous multi-million-dollar heist that goes tragically wrong. And back in leafy Stellenbosch, a local businessman is found murdered in what looks like a professional hit – suffocated by filler foam sprayed down his throat. A message to keep silent – but about what? You need a cool head to unravel it all, under enormous pressure. You have to stay calm, focused – and sober. Benny may be sober, but he’s not feeling calm. Because in just a few weeks he is set to get married, a date that’s racing towards him like an express train. Big trouble, on every front.

About Deon Meyer

Deon Meyer lives in Cape Town. His books are sold in 23 countries, and have been awarded many prizes around the world: the Deutsche Krimi Prize in Germany, the ATKV Prize in South Africa, the Martin Beck Award in Sweden and Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Le Prix Mystère de la Critique in France. COBRA was shortlisted for the 2015 CWA International Dagger, THIRTEEN HOURS was shortlisted for the 2010 CWA International Dagger, and HEART OF THE HUNTER, was longlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Prize and selected as one of Chicago Tribune’s ‘10 best mysteries and thrillers of 2004’. THE DARK FLOOD was longlisted for the 2023 CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation.

Praise for LEO

‘When a new Deon Meyer lands on the shelves, I feel like W.H. Auden: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.” All 490 pages of such a book have to be devoured in one sitting. Keep it for the holidays, or for a weekend when you have nothing planned… You’ll be on the edge of your seat, chewing your nails… Meyer is the best, if you ask me... Buy LEO and take a day or two off work.’ – Deborah Steinmair, Vrye Weekblad

Praise for Deon Meyer

‘Deon Meyer's name on the cover is a guarantee of crime writing at its best.’ – Tess Gerritsen

‘Deon Meyer should be on everyone's reading list.’ – Michael Connelly

‘Deon Meyer is the monarch of South African crime novelists.’ – Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

‘Unquestionably the supremo of South African crime-writing fiction’ – Peter James

‘Deon Meyer is not just South Africa’s greatest crime writer, he’s up there with the best in the world.’ – Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘Deon Meyer is good at sketching a realistic country, people we recognise and grow accustomed to, and telling a darn good yarn.’ – Diane De Beer, The Star

‘Deon Meyer is one of the best crime writers on the planet.’ – Mail on Sunday

Visit Deon’s website

Follow Deon on Twitter

Hannah Lowe shortlisted for the 2024 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award

November 13, 2023 Intern BlakeFriedmann

Costa Book Award-winner Hannah Lowe has been shortlisted for the highly prestigious 2024 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award.

The award is given annually to two writers in the early stages of a new book relating to the Americas, with the £20,000 prize now in its 13th year. Along with the £20,000 grant, the winners also receive a residency at the British Library, the chance to appear at future Hay Festival editions with their published work, and the opportunity to work with the Eccles Centre to develop and facilitate activities and events related to their research at the British Library. Past winners include Olivia Laing, John Burnside and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo.

The other writers on this year’s shortlist are Mexican novelist Julian Herbert Chavez, Irish art critic Isobel Harbison, Bolivian novelist Rodrigo Hasbún, British-American historian Sarah M.S. Pearsall, and Chilean novelist Alia Trabucco Zerán. You can read about them and their work here.

Hannah’s submitted work for the award was a lyrical, hybrid memoir, with the working title of MOY: In Search of Nelsa Lowe. It uses the intimate story of her Chinese Jamaican aunt – a folk healer, amputee, hostess of a famous waterfront restaurant, and ‘madam’ of a portside brothel – as a device for exploring the history of the Chinese in Jamaica, women’s sexual labour, and the culture of folk healing.

The judges said: ‘We were enthralled by Hannah Lowe’s inventive approach to conjuring Nelsa, her Afro-Chinese Jamaican aunt. Remarkably, Lowe evokes Nelsa through a single portrait photo and along the way excavates other marginalised women whose lives are rarely noted in official archives.’

The winners will be announced at an awards reception at the British Library on Wednesday 29 November.