Headline has signed two books from Carmel Harrington following a three-way auction.
Fiction publishing director Jennifer Doyle acquired world English language rights from Rowan Lawton at The Soho Agency. The Stolen Child, the first book in the deal, will be published under the Headline Review imprint in February 2025. Harrington was previously published by HarperCollins.
A “gripping” novel, The Stolen Child explores what happens to the Murphy family after their son is kidnapped on a cruise ship. Forty years after the incident, a man returns to the family’s life with a theory about what happened to their son, “uncovering a trail of betrayal and deceit dating back to the 1960s and a shocking double twist that will shatter all their lives”.
Doyle said: “I am delighted to welcome Carmel Harrington to Headline. Carmel is such an effortless storyteller, writing wholly immersive, page-turning family dramas that are full of both suspense and heart. The Stolen Child has everything Carmel does so brilliantly: relatable characters facing heart-wrenching dilemmas and long-buried family secrets coming to light with deliciously clever twists. I can’t wait to get this book into the hands of readers everywhere.”
Harrington commented: “When I met Jennifer Doyle and the Headline team, I knew I had found the perfect new home! Their enthusiasm and ambition for my books were impossible to resist. The Stolen Child is a novel about the far-reaching consequences following the disappearance of a child. But it is also about the many masks we wear to hide the traumas of our past and what happens when those masks finally fall. I cannot wait to share this story with readers worldwide.”
