Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, will publish a new thriller from Paula Hawkins this fall. The Blue Hour is slated for October 8. Mariner v-p and editorial director for fiction Kate Nintzel acquired U.S. rights, and the deal was handled by Simon Lipskar at Writers House, on behalf of Lizzy Kremer at David Higham at David Higham Associates.
Hawkins's previous books, including the hit 2015 novel The Girl on the Train and 2017's Into the Water, were published by Riverhead.
According to Mariner, The Blue Hour takes place on a remote Scottish Island which is home to "a famous (some might say infamous) artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared after visiting her twenty years ago." Propelling the novel, which the publisher says "recalls the very best of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith" is "a present-day discovery that intimately connects three people and unveils a web of secrets and lies."
In a statement, Hawkins said she is "excited to be publishing with Kate Nintzel and the Mariner team." At the center of the novel, which she said she "loved writing," is what Hawkins called an exploration of "the tension between the need to belong and the desire to be free of the demands and expectations of others."
