Hitchcock-inspired thriller to HQ

HQ is to publish a Hitchcock-inspired debut thriller titled White Bodies by journalist and author Jane Robins.

HQ executive publisher Lisa Milton acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the title from Natasha Fairweather at United Agents.

White Bodies follows bookseller, Callie, as she watches her beautiful, talented sister visibly shrink and diminish under the domineering love of her new boyfriend. Tilda has stopped working and pretty much stopped eating. Her flat is freakishly clean and tidy, with mugs wrapped in cling film and ominous syringes in the bathroom bin. Callie is so worried that she joins an internet support group – controllingmen.com – for the victims and families of women enduring abuse from their partners. But when one of Callie’s new internet friends is murdered by her abusive partner both Tilda and Callie’s lives spiral out of control. "Cleverly reworking" Alfred Hitchcock’s 'Strangers on a Train' for the internet age, White Bodies follows the story of an abusive relationship that tests the unbreakable ties that bind twin sisters.

Fairweather said: “This debut novel is a new venture of great ambition and style for Jane Robins, and the same can be said for HQ. So this feels like a perfect marriage of author and publisher, and I was excited to play Cupid.”

Robins said: “I'm totally thrilled to be working with Lisa Milton and the entire HQ team. I have huge respect for their skill and expertise, and am delighted that they are so enthusiastic about White Bodies.”

Sally Williamson, Jane Robins’s editor at HQ, said: “Jane has written an utterly mesmerising book that I devoured in one sitting, gripped by every exquisite page. Unique, addictive and darkly twisted, this is going to be huge.”

White Bodies will be published on 28th December 2017 in hardback, e-book and audiobook.