Jefferies moves to HarperCollins for new trilogy

Dinah Jefferies is moving from Penguin to HarperCollins for a trilogy of novels based around three sisters in wartime Europe.

Lynne Drew, publishing director at HarperFiction, acquired world English rights to the novels from Caroline Hardman at Hardman & Swainson. The first novel in the trilogy will be published in 2021.

The as-yet-untitled first novel opens in 1944. The synopsis states: “Telling the story of three half-English sisters who have been living at their family’s summer home, deep in the Perigord Noir, since before the outbreak of war, the novel follows the three women as their beautiful, rural part of occupied France is caught between the sabotage of the Maquis and the reprisals of the occupying German army, wounded below the waterline but determined to fight to the end.

"Hélène, the eldest sister, is pulled from her work as a nurse further into the fight against the Nazis than she ever expected. The next two novels will each focus on one of the sisters, the second moving between England and Malta.”

Dinah Jefferies began her career with The Separation (Penguin), followed by the number one Sunday Times bestseller The Tea-Planter’s Wife (Penguin). With her most recent book, her seventh novel The Tuscan Contessa (Penguin), she moved to writing about a European setting for the first time and continues that in this new series. She is published in nearly 30 countries and has shifted 543,403 copies for £2.8m through Nielsen Bookscan, with her bestseller The Tea Planter's Wife, at 238,333 copies sold in paperback.

Jefferies said: “I’m delighted with this move to HarperFiction and excited to be writing a trilogy. Lynne Drew is an exceptional editor and I can’t wait to begin the next stage of what has been a life changing career.”

Lynne Drew said: “I love Dinah’s captivating storytelling: she writes historical fiction that weaves the dark with the light, with an extraordinary sense of place and showing the triumph of the human spirit under duress. I am so excited about her move to HarperFiction with this trilogy of sweeping, epic novels.”