HQ snaps up powerful book on dealing with heartbreak by Haddon and Field

HQ has snapped up a “powerful” book on dealing with heartbreak by Alice Haddon and Ruth Field.  

Lisa Milton, executive publisher, and Louise McKeever, editorial director acquired world English-language rights to The Heartbreak Hotel from Chandler Crawford and Dorothy Vincent at the Transatlantic Agency. It will publish in the UK in September 2023. 

The Heartbreak Hotel will be published in the US by Judith Curr of HarperOne. It has been pre-empted in the Netherlands by HarperCollins, by Mondadori in Italy, Polaris/Rowohlt in Germany, Arab Scientific Publisher in Lebanon and in Hungary by Libri. 

The publisher said the book was written for heartbroken women, no matter their stage of life. It added: “Heartbreak Hotel will empower women to connect with their emotions, raise their voices and in doing so will help them to navigate their life with resilience and positivity. This is the ultimate compassionate toolkit to free everyone from the heartbreak we will all encounter and endure in our lives.”  

Haddon is a psychologist and lecturer at the University of London and Field is an author. The pair started running retreats during the pandemic, offering a new therapeutic framework for dealing with heartbreak and grief. 

They said: “We knew right away we’d found our home when we met Lisa Milton and the incredible team at HQ, who blew us away with their response to The Heartbreak Hotel. Lisa shares our passion for this project which has gathered a momentum beyond anything we could have imagined. It’s a testament to the power of women when they get together. HarperCollins, you had us from hello.” 

Milton added: “From the moment I started reading The Heartbreak Hotel, I knew we had to publish at HQ. Alice and Ruth write with such clarity, I could literally feel the book’s incredible impact with each sentence. Sadly, most of us suffer heartbreak in our lives, sometimes romantic, sometimes other. The Heartbreak Hotel is a very powerful book that will help mend [heartbreak] for many years to come. This will be a movement, not just a book.”