Two-book deal for bestselling author Sheila O'Flanagan

Headline Publishing Group is delighted to announce a new two-book deal with No. 1 bestselling author Sheila O’Flanagan.

Sheila is one of the biggest brands in women’s fiction, having written over twenty bestselling novels and short story collections. The paperback of IF YOU WERE ME recently appeared on the Sunday Times bestsellers list and was an Irish Times Number One bestseller for five weeks and in the top ten for fifteen weeks, while Sheila’s novel MY MOTHER’S SECRET is currently in its fifth week on the Irish Times original fiction bestsellers list. Sheila is also a top-selling author in the international market in English and in translation, the latter in twenty-four countries.

The first novel in the new contact will be published in summer 2017. Before that, in 2016 Headline will publish Sheila’s 21st novel, while Hodder Children’s Books will publish Sheila’s first children’s novel, THE CRYSTAL RUN.

The new deal with HPG, which is for British Commonwealth rights inc Canada, was agreed by Marion Donaldson, Executive Editor at HPG, and agent Carole Blake of the Blake Friedmann Agency.

Sheila O’Flanagan says: ‘I am delighted to continue a happy professional and personal relationship with the great team at Headline book publishers.’

Carole Blake says: ‘We’ve recently celebrated, in Dublin, two decades of happy partnership between Sheila and Headline. I’m delighted that there are more book and more bestsellers to come.’

Marion Donaldson says: ‘I’m thrilled that Sheila has signed a new deal with Headline. No one writes about the dilemmas women encounter quite like Sheila O’Flanagan, and her writing grows stronger with every novel. It’s fantastically exciting for us all to have two more unputdownable and thought-provoking novels from Sheila to look forward to.’

Bestseller Peter James signs a major new five book deal with Pan Macmillan

Publishing Director of Pan Macmillan, Wayne Brookes, has concluded a major five book deal with the eight times number one bestseller Peter James.  This new deal will see Peter penning three more novels in the acclaimed Roy Grace series and two standalone thrillers. The success of Peter’s Brighton based Roy Grace novels have seen him become the UK’s No. 1 bestselling police procedural author and has seen him amass sales of over 16 million to date.

 The two new standalone thrillers are set to match the success of Peter’s 2011 standalone novel PERFECT PEOPLE, which won many awards, including the publicly voted ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards, People’s Bestseller Dagger and a place on the shortlist for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize. Peter’s first standalone novel since PERFECT PEOPLE will be THE HOUSE ON THE COLD HILL, a ghost story out this Autumn. 

 Jeremy Trevathan, Publisher, said: ‘In the ten years that we have published him Peter has become the No. 1 UK-based crime writer. I’m thrilled therefore that we’ve concluded a new deal with him, through Carole Blake, and secured the next stage of our strategy to continue to grow his sales both in the UK and international markets.’

 Wayne Brookes, Publishing Director, added: ‘Long before I came to Macmillan I was a fan of Peter James. The Roy Grace series is simply magnificent in both plot and character and each book we publish gathers thousands of new readers. However, what’s so very exciting is that with Peter’s standalone novels we can also explore beyond the world of Roy Grace and his team. Peter is a master storyteller and I couldn’t be more excited about the future.’

 Carole Blake, Partner of Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, said: ‘The Macmillan-Peter James partnership has worked very well for more than a decade. It’s a tremendous source of satisfaction to me to see it going forward for several more years. Great novels, huge sales and terrific fun. Perfect!’

 Peter James commented: ‘When I was a child my ambition was to be a published author, and one day to see a book I had written on the shelves of a bookstore.  The bestseller lists seemed an unattainable dream back then, and that coveted No 1 an impossibility that could only ever happen to someone else…  During this past decade Pan Macmillan have repeatedly made that dream and that impossibility come true for me.  For that I will be eternally grateful, and I could not be happier to have now signed this new deal with them and be continuing forward into the exciting and adventurous future, with them.’

 Peter James has been twice Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and has won many literary awards: as popular internationally as in the UK, he won the US Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel in 2012.  This year, 2015, he was voted by WH Smith readers as The Best Crime Author Of All Time. He is published in more than 3 dozen languages.

Find out more about Peter James at Blake Friedmann's, Pan Macmillan's and Peter’s websites and follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Janice Galloway’s THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING published as a Vintage Classic today!

Janice Galloway’s seminal novel THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING is reissued by Vintage as one of their Vintage Classics today, with a brand new cover.

THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING was first published by Polygon in 1989. The novel won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year and was also shortlisted for both the Whitbread First Novel and Scottish First Book awards.

Joy Stone, a 27-year-old drama teacher, has come undone. Suffering from a deep depression, the problems of everyday living accumulate and begin to torture her, and she attributes her difficulties not to troubles at work, or to the accidental death of her illicit lover, but to herself. While painful and deeply serious, this is a novel of great warmth and energy, as Joy is forced to learn that the trick to survival is to find those things that let life go on. The wit and irony found in moments of despair prove to be Joy's salvation and add a completely original note to women's writing.

Janice Galloway was born in Ayrshire in 1955. She is the author of three novels, three collections of short stories and two memoirs. She has been writer in residence to four Scottish prisons, Research Fellow to the British Library, resident at Jura Distillery, and was recently the first Fellow in Residence at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Her radio work includes two series for BBC (LIFE AS A MAN and IMAGINED LIVES) and programmes on music and musicians. She also works extensively with musicians, visual artists and typographers.

Praise for THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING:

"An account from the inside of a mind cracking up. . . its writing is as taut as a bowstring. From brilliant title to closing injunction, it hums with intelligence, clarity, wit; and, its heroine's struggle for order and meaning seduces our minds, exposes how close we all of us are to insanity. Joy, as Galloway's heroine reluctantly lets us know that she's called, is simply that dangerous step or two nearer the edge" - The Listener

‘Resembles Tristram Shandy as rewritten by Sylvia Plath.’ – New York Times

 ‘Unsentimental, caustic, brilliantly observed ... The trick of her writing is how easy she makes it seem, how artfully she restructures and transforms the ordinary.’ – Time Out

 Praise for Janice Galloway:

‘She provides sentences blazing with light, a gorgeous draft of terror.’ – The Observer

‘Galloway catches detail perfectly and can create vivid impressions in a word or two.’ – The Times

CATCH BFLA WRITERS AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVALS

Tickets are now on sale for Edinburgh International Book Festival and you can see several Blake Friedmann authors there this August.

Margie Orford will be appearing twice, first together with Ben Mcpherson for the event MADE UP STORIES: REAL WORLD CONCERNS on Monday 17 August, from 5:00pm to 6:00pm at the Writer’s Retreat. You can also see Margie at the AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL IMPRISIONED WRITERS SERIES on Tuesday 18 August, from 5:30pm to 6:15pm at the Bailie Gifford Corner Theatre.

Janice Galloway will be talking about SEX AND LIFE AND PARENTHOOD on Thursday 20 August from 11:45am to 12:45pm at the Baillie Gifford Main Theatre. The talk will be chaired by Jackie McGlone. Before the festival, Janice will be launching her new edition of THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING, re-published by Vintage Classics as part of their Scottish Classics Collection, alongside A.L. Kennedy at Looking Glass Books, on Thursday 13 August from 6:30pm.  Janice will also appear at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on 28 August, 1:00pm, to read from JELLYFISH and discuss her work, admission will be free, and donations welcome.

Amy Mason will be speaking with Esther Gerritsen at the event MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS: A PSYCHOLOGICAL DUET at Thursday 20 August from 8:45pm to 9:45 pm at the Bailie Gifford Corner Theatre. Amy is also up for the First Book Award at the Edinburgh Festival, for THE OTHER IDA. You can vote for her here.

Following last year’s total sell-out run, Andrew Doyle will be doing his stand up show MINIMALISM at the Stand this year, from Wednesday 5 August till Sunday 30 August.

The Edinburgh Festival is one of the largest Arts events in the world and takes place for three weeks every August in Scotland’s capital city.

Charles Lambert’s THE CHILDREN’S HOME to Scott Pack of Aardvark Bureau

Aardvark Bureau publisher-at-large Scott Pack has acquired UK and BC rights excluding Canada to THE CHILDREN’S HOME, a chilling new novel by Charles Lambert . The two-book deal, with the novel PRODIGAL to follow in 2017, was brokered by Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann. Scott published Charles’s innovative and acclaimed memoir WITH A ZERO AT ITS HEART at The Friday Project and author and editor are now reunited at the new Belgravia imprint, Aardvark Bureau. Nan Graham and John Glynn of Scribner pre-empted earlier for North American rights to THE CHILDREN’S HOME, which will come out both sides of the Atlantic at the start of 2016.

In THE CHILDREN’S HOME shocking disfigured recluse Morgan never leaves the country mansion he is heir to. His isolation is only punctuated by the presence of his housekeeper, Engel, and the weekly visits of kindly Doctor Crane. But his solitary existence is disturbed when a young boy and girl arrive in the house, as if from nowhere. Drawn to the mysterious children, Morgan lets them stay, and with the help of Engel and Crane, begins to care for them – and others who soon follow them, in a strange Pied Piper-ish reversal. As the strangely wise children explore the corridors and abandoned rooms of the house, they reveal to Morgan a cabinet of curiosities – and bitter secrets of his own life.

Scott Pack says: “I'll be honest, I got a bit emotional when Charles said he wanted to come with me to Aardvark Bureau. I was thrilled that I would still be working with him. And then he delivered his most remarkable book yet. THE CHILDREN’S HOME is a masterpiece – disturbing and beautiful in equal measure – and I cannot wait to share it with the reading public.”

Charles Lambert says: “I was delighted when Scott invited me to be part of Aardvark Bureau at the start of its journey. He has courage, the kind of editorial sensitivity writers dream of and, last but not least, great commercial acumen. More than anything, Scott is a man who loves books. It's a privilege to work with him.”

Agent Isobel Dixon adds: “It’s a huge pleasure to seal this deal re-uniting a great author-publisher duo. We’re getting passionate pre-publication praise for THE CHILDREN’S HOME and are excited to share this brilliantly eerie, unforgettable novel with more readers.”

Praise for THE CHILDREN’S HOME:

‘A beautiful and uncanny novel by a writer who never ceases to surprise.’ – Jenny Offill, author of DEPT OF SPECULATION

'Charles Lambert’s muted, beautiful prose leads the reader through THE CHILDREN'S HOME on a chain of burning questions: Who? When? How? Why? More delicate than Dickens and stranger than Snicket, this is a novel of odd, canny children; life-like wax figures; a wicked mother and her disfigured boy-man of a son. Sometimes heart-stopping, sometimes heart-warming, it is a provocative tale, ripe with intrigue and atmosphere. I loved every weird moment of it.’ – Nuala O’Connor, author of MISS EMILY

‘THE CHILDREN’S HOME is a not-nice sort of fairy tale, where the magic doesn't sparkle prettily but boils and oozes, where the Prince has a face of tatters, where the children take grown-up revenge on their monsters. It's also, somehow, a searching, empathetic narrative about forgiveness.’ – Owen King, author of DOUBLE FEATURE: A Novel

About the author:

Born in England, Charles lives in Fondi, near Rome, working as a university teacher and freelance editor. He is the author of the novels LITTLE MONSTERS and ANY HUMAN FACE (Picador) and the short story collection THE SCENT OF CINNAMON (Salt). His work is included in THE BEST OF BRITISH SHORT STORIES 2013 (Salt) and he has won an O. Henry Award and other short story prizes. THE VIEW FROM THE TOWER was published in 2014 by Exhibit A.

About Aardvark Bureau:

Aardvark Bureau is an imprint of Belgravia. Its mission is to publish innovative and unusual writing from around the world, in both fiction and non-fiction.