Second 'remarkable' Emma Healey novel coming next year

Viking is publishing the second novel of Emma Healey, author of 2015 bestselling debut Elizabeth is Missing.

Her second novel, Whistle in the Dark, is "a gripping mystery" about a family whose 15-year-old daughter Lana goes missing, only to return four days later apparently unharmed. As Lana insists on not being able to remember what happened, her mother Jen becomes determined, at all costs, to find out the truth, all the while discovering that her own daughter has become a stranger. 

It will be published on 3rd may 2018, alongside Viking by Knopf Canada and HarperCollins US. Venetia Butterfield bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown.

Butterfield said Healey's second novel was "even more remarkable" than her "once in a lifetime" debut as a "suspenseful, sophisticated story of mothers and daughters which takes Emma’s writing to a whole new level". Healey's first novel, Elizabeth is Missing was a "book of the fair" at London Book Fair in 2013. Viking won the title after a nine-publisher auction and it went on to sell over 800,000 copies, in 29 languages, and won the Costa First Novel Award 2014. It is currently in advanced stages of development for television at the BBC.

Butterfield added: "I am hugely excited to share Emma’s incredible talent with readers once again."

Sutton said: "I was blown away by Whistle in the Dark. It confirms Emma Healey’s talent for marrying suspense with deep and nuanced characterisation. Emma takes us somewhere very unexpected as she explores the relationship between mothers and teenage daughters. What happens when your child becomes a stranger? Whistle in the Dark is beautiful, original, psychologically rich and very gratifying. Emma’s many fans will be thrilled."