Cathy Glass turns to crime fiction for Avon

HarperCollins' bestselling non-fiction author Cathy Glass is to turn her hand to crime fiction with Avon.

Glass is a fostering memoir author, who this year celebrates 10 years of publishing with Harper Element. Her latest release Nobody’s Son was published last month. In total she has sold 1.53 million books for £6.8m via Nielsen Bookscan, with her bestseller being 2007’s Damaged, which has sold 288,832 copies for £1.24m.

Glass will write crime fiction for HarperCollins imprint Avon under the name of Lisa Stone. World rights in two novels were acquired from Andrew Lownie at the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency.

Editorial director non-fiction Carolyn Thorne said: "I’m delighted to see Cathy diversifying into fiction, it is such a natural progression for her superb storytelling skills."

Glass said: "I am absolutely thrilled to be working with Avon on this new venture. I shall still be writing my fostering memoirs and I’ve adapted the same fast paced narrative that has made the Cathy Glass books so successful. I think my readers will be as excited as I am."

Lownie said: "This is an exciting new departure for Cathy which draws on her skills of characterisation and building narrative suspense from everyday activities. I am sure the novels will prove to be as successful as her non-fiction."

Avon editor Phoebe Morgan said: "We are so excited about this opportunity to work with Cathy on a new venture in her already amazing career. Her memoirs are loved around the world but in stepping into fiction, she is doing something entirely different and has created a gripping thriller with a chilling concept at its heart. I’m really pleased that Cathy is staying within the Harper family and can’t wait to show the world her darker side!"

Avon will publish the first book in summer 2017, with the second scheduled for summer 2018.