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New Paula Hawkins thriller coming in May
Paula Hawkins has penned a “dark and moving” second psychological suspense novel for Doubleday called Into The Water, set for release next May.
The book is about “the slipperiness of the truth, and a family drowning in secrets”, her publisher said.
Set in a small riverside town in the UK, the novel will “unfurl a gripping, twisting, layered story”. While little has been given away in terms of plot, it will feature two sisters and “ghostly echoes of the past”.
Hawkins' last novel The Girl on a Train has sold almost 2.1 million print units in the UK for just over £13m through Nielsen BookScan since its release in January 2015, catapulting Hawkins into the world’s ‘highest paid author’s’ list for the first time this summer.
The book has spent 12 weeks at the UK number one for the paperback edition this year and also hit number one for the hardback format. It has also spent 25 weeks at Mass Market Fiction number one, 29 at Original Fiction number one.
Hawkins said her new psychological suspense novel had been “brewing for a good while”.
“For me there is something irresistible about the stories we tell ourselves, the way voices and truths can be hidden consciously or unconsciously, memories can be washed away and whole histories submerged,” she said. “Then two sisters appeared, and the novel began to form.”
Her editor Sarah Adams said that Into The Water “drips with suspicion and the ghostly echoes of the past”.
“It is a menacing, moving, deeply satisfying read which entranced me from first page to last,” she said. “We couldn’t be more excited to share it with her eagerly awaiting readers.”
Hawkins has previously written romantic fiction under the pen name Amy Silver, but The Girl on the Train was her first thriller written under her real name.
Hawkins’ literary agent, Lizzy Kremer of David Higham Associates, said Hawkins’ new novel was “incredibly dark and moving”.
“It is an unflinching and original book that is both a terrific thriller and a beautiful novel,” she said.
Publication of Into the Water will be supported by a “huge” multimedia PR and marketing campaign and major promotions across all retailers, Doubleday said. It will be published in hardcover, e-book and both CD and digital download audio on 2nd May 2017.
