Headline snaps up new novel by Isaac and the Egg author Palmer

Headline has acquired Small Hours, the “vividly imaginative and intensely moving” new novel from Bobby Palmer, author of Isaac and the Egg.

Editorial director Frankie Edwards acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Millie Hoskins at United Agents. It will launch as a lead hardback on Headline Review in spring 2024.

Small Hours follows Jack, a young man working in the city and estranged from his father, and what happens when he returns home to the country for the first time in years when his mother leaves with no word of explanation.

Told through three "distinctive" voices, the publisher has said it is an “evocative and illuminating story of a family in crisis and the ghosts of the past who still haunt them, of life-changing conversations in the early hours of the morning, and of a great love between two people whose time left together is running short".

Edwards said: “Bobby Palmer is one of the most exciting new novelists around. He writes with such perception and imagination, and we’re thrilled to be publishing his second novel next year. Small Hours is an ambitious and surprising undertaking, with the characteristic warmth and creative flair that made readers everywhere fall in love with Isaac and the Egg.”

Palmer added: “Working on my first book with Frankie and the whole team at Headline was a joy, so I couldn’t be happier to be doing it all again. Small Hours is a book that has had me in its grasp for two years now, and one which I hope will take readers in some unexpected directions.”