Debut novel from Costa-winning Luan Goldie to HQ

The debut novel from last year’s Costa Short Story Award winner Luan Goldie will be published by HQ.

HQ editorial director Manpreet Grewal acquired world English rights to Nightingale Point and one other novel from Eve White at Eve White Literary Agency. The book will be published in hardback, trade paperback, e-book and audio in August 2019.

Nightingale Point explores what happens to the people living on a council estate in east London when a cargo plane loses control and crashes into their homes. Set in 1996 and exploring how this community puts itself back together after tragedy, the author was inspired to write Nightingale Point when in Amsterdam a taxi driver told her the true story about a cargo plane that took off from Schiphol Airport and crashed into a council estate.

Goldie, formerly a business journalist and now a primary school teacher, won the £3,500 Costa Short Story Award in 2017 for “Two Steak Bakes and Two Chelsea Buns” and was shortlisted for the Grazia/Orange Prize First Chapter competition in 2012. Last year she was chosen to take part in the Almasi League, an Arts Council-funded mentorship programme for emerging writers of colour. 

Grewal said: “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Nightingale Point since I first read it. Even though it’s set in 1996, it’s so relevant to the world we’re living in today, and the eclectic multi-cast narrative set against a vivid rendering of east London sets the tone for this debut from a writer whose profile is growing within the literary community. This is White Teeth meets Brick Lane for a new generation of readers, and I’ll be so proud to see this book hit shelves next August.”

Goldie aded: “This is the story I’ve wanted to tell for years and I’m so excited to be working with Manpreet to put it out next summer.”