On Monday I had the good fortune of attending the HarperCollins offices for their HQ imprint event #DestinationHQ. The purpose of the event was to showcase their future releases for Summer 2019 to Spring 2020.
Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the eighties, becomes a Londoner n the nineties. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her – while Lauren enters a brand new life, too.
But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him.
And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found…
Mary has a secret life that no one knows about, not even Malachi and Tristan, the brothers she vowed to look after.
Malachi had to grow up too quickly. Between looking after Tristan and nursing a broken heart, he feels older than his twenty-one years.
Tristan wishes Malachi would stop pining for Pamela. No wonder he’s falling in with the wrong crowd, without Malachi to keep him straight.
Elvis is trying hard to remember the instructions his care worker gave him, but sometimes he gets confused and forgets things.
Pamela wants to run back to Malachi but her overprotective father has locked her in and there’s no way out.
But when the sun sets, Nightingale Point is irrevocably changed and somehow, through the darkness, the residents must find a way back to lightness, and back to each other.
Some houses are never at peace.
England, 1917.
Reeling from the death of her fiance, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to find a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion.
Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella that plague Madeleine – sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs – and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic past of the house.
Aided by a wounded war veteran, Stella sets about uncovering Greyswick’s dark and terrible secrets – secrets the dead whisper from the other side…
Pre-order here
Amjad never imagined he’d be a single father. But he must step up for his two children – while his world falls apart.
Saahil dreams of providing for his dad and little sister. But his life is about to take an unexpected turn.
As the baby of the family, Zahra is shielded from the worst the world has to offer. But, as she grows up, she wonders if she can rely on anyone but herself.
There’s no such thing as an easy journey. But when life sends the family in different directions, will they take their own paths – or find their way back to each other?
Pre-order here
With the Blitz over and London reeling from war, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for help. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he’s taken a tiny room in South London lodgings, and has fallen in love with the girl next door.
Touring Soho’s music halls by night, pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home and it’s alive with possibility. Until, one morning, he makes a discovery that will send shockwaves through the community. And the city’s newest inhabitants will be the first to feel them.
Pre-order here
Katherine Ross is a career woman in her early forties, a self-assured London homeowner with a loving partner, childless by choice. She’s got it all her own way.
But when their professional and personal lives collide, Katherine finds herself obsessively drawn to Lily. as the stages mount in their cat-and-mouse game, a deeply disturbing picture emerges of two women who are not what they seem – and who are desperate enough to do anything to come out on top.
But when larger-than-life TV host, Ricky Clough, dies live on air, her life is sent spinning out of control. And with foul play suspected, the spotlight is turned firmly on his colleagues – especially Hutch, the man desperate for Ricky’s job and whom Elizabeth is secretly dating.
As her world comes crashing down around her, Elizabeth realises that perhaps the only person she can really trust, is herself.
Pre-order here
Famed for its natural beauty and rich history, Sardinia in 1968 is notorious, too, for the bandits who kidnap wealthy landowners for ransom.
Eleven-year-old Alba Fresu’s brother, and her father, Bruno, are abducted by criminals who mistake Bruno for a rich man. After a grueling journey through the countryside, the two are eventually released – but the experience leaves Alba shaken and unable to readjust to normal life.
Accompanying her mother to cleaning jobs, Alba visits the villa of an eccentric Signora and touches the keys of a piano for the first time. The instrument’s spell is immediate. During secret lessons, forbidden by her mother, Alba is at last able to express emotions too powerful for words alone.
But her path will lead her to a crossroads, and Alba will have to decide how to reconcile her talent with her longing for love and family, and convey the music of her heart…
So when Mrs Millwood is taken ill, it ruins everything – and Mr Doubler begins to worry that he might have lost his way. But could the kindness of strangers be enough to bring him down from the hill?
Well it’s pretty bad actually. First Max ghosts her and then, after weeing on a stick (but mostly on her hands), a few weeks later Lil discovers she’s pregnant. She’s single, thirty-one and living in a thimblesized flat in London, it’s hardly the happily-ever-after she was looking for.
Lil’s ready to do the baby-thing on her own – it can’t be that hard, right? But she should probably tell Max, if she can track him down.
Surely he’s not that Max, the highly eligible, headline-grabbing son of Lord and Lady Rushbrooke, currently trekking up a mountain in South Asia? Oh, maybe he wasn’t ignoring Lil after all…
Phoebe and Sam meet by chance at St Pancras station. Heading in opposite directions, both seeking their own adventures, meeting the love of their lives wasn’t part of the plan. So they make a promise: to meet again in the same place in twelve months’ time if they still want to be together.
But is life ever as simple as that?
This is a story of what-ifs and maybes – and how one decision can change your life forever…
First to arrive are the bride’s parents, Maggie and Nick. Their daughter’s marriage is a milestone they are determined to celebrate wholeheartedly, but they are hiding a huge secret about their own: they are on the brink of divorce.
Rosie’s older sister Katie is also dreading the wedding. worried that impulsive, sweet-hearted Rosie is making a mistake, Katie is determined to save her sister fro herself. If only the irritatingly good-looking best man, Jordan, would stop interfering with her plans…
Bride-to-be Rosie loves her fiance but is having serious second thoughts. As the big day gets closer, and emotions run even higher, this is one White family Christmas none of them will ever forget.
Daisy and Simon’s marriage is great, isn’t it?
After years together, the arrival of longed-for daughter Millie sealed everything in place. A happy little family of three.
And so what if Simon drinks a bit too much sometimes – Daisy’s used to it, she knows he’s letting off steam. Until one night at a party things spiral horribly out of control. And that happy little family of three will never be the same again.
Karen is driving through a strange landscape into a new life. Always a city girl, now she is on her way to an idyllic country cottage, refurbished for her with impeccable taste by her husband Nick. They’re making a fresh start.
But something is awry in the new house. It’s not just the fact that Karen and Nick are ill at ease in one another’s company – that their recent history is far from picture perfect, it’s the whole vibe. The landscape is breathtaking by day, eerie by night. If the countryside is supposed to be a place of peace, far away from curtain-twitchers, who is the person watching them from the hill? And who are their new neighbours?
But Livia has a secret, a secret she’s been keeping from Adam, her husband, until the party is over. Because how can she tell him that although she loves Marnie, she’s glad their daughter won’t be there to celebrate with her?
Adam is determined everything will be just right for Livia and the party is going to be perfect… until he learns something that will leave him facing an unbearable decision.
Ben can’t believe his luck when the beautiful Bella walks into his life, just when he needs her most.
Still bruised and vulnerable since breaking-up with long-term girlfriend, Charlotte, he falls head over heels in love.
But Bella isn’t quite the ideal partner that Ben believes her to be. She quickly decides that everything is better when it is just the two of them – making it harder for friend and family to stay in touch.
And then a sudden death triggers a chain of events that throws Ben headlong into a nightmare…
The Curious Ginger Cat 