Press Release: Harlequin UK and Harlequin NA Announce United Strategy to Acquire and Promote Significant Commercial Fiction in World English Markets

LONDON — April 13, 2016 — London Book Fair-Today, Harlequin UK-who announced last week that they will be publishing using the new HQ imprint-and Harlequin North America (NA) unveiled a coordinated strategy to acquire and promote powerful and compelling fiction for their respective trade imprints across world English markets. Based out of London and New York, the two publishing teams will take advantage of their knowledge, networks and expertise in their corresponding markets to jointly distribute, market and sell their titles.

Harlequin UK and NA have recently won a number of competitive auctions and preemptive deals for highly anticipated new books by impressing authors and agents with their synchronized capacity to maximize their publishing potential on the world English stage.

"Working with my new colleagues to find and share fantastic voices is one of the highlights of my new role," said Lisa Milton, Executive Publisher, Harlequin UK. "Finding like-minded, passionate colleagues across the pond is a dream, and I'm really excited about what we can achieve. Our challenge is to find incredible debuts, to build sales for established authors and to create bestsellers. With one voice and one campaign tweaked for each market, we can achieve so much more than we could individually."

By uniting the resources of their highly successful North American and UK publishing teams, Harlequin is able to capitalize on the power of its larger organization, which benefits its authors greatly in terms of distribution and expertise in each individual market. The unified strategy also enables Harlequin to acquire books sold to other publishers in either market and present authors and agents with an impressive vision for their titles in other world English markets.

"The strengthening of the Harlequin UK and Harlequin North America publishing platform makes us a formidable player in the world of English commercial fiction," said Loriana Sacilotto, Executive Vice President, Global Editorial, Harlequin. "The power of our global footprint positions us well to broaden the scope of our commercial fiction list, and we look forward to more exciting and significant acquisitions in the months to come."

Recent much-buzzed-about acquisitions include highly anticipated debut releases such as THE IMPROBABLE FLIGHT OF GINNY MOON by Ben Ludwig, A HEART FULL OF ALL KINDS OF LOVE by Brianna Wolfson, AN ALMOND FOR A PARROT by Wray Delaney, FOR EVE by Allegra Huston and ARROWOOD by Mick Finlay.

THE IMPROBABLE FLIGHT OF GINNY MOON follows Ginny, an autistic teenager who's finally been adopted into a loving, safe home as she desperately tries to get kidnapped by her abusive, drug addict birth mother. A HEART FULL OF ALL KINDS OF LOVE tells the bittersweet story about a loving family that is disintegrating as the mother's mental instability becomes apparent. AN ALMOND FOR A PARROT paints a vivid tale about a magician's apprentice in 18th-century London's finest brothel. FOR EVE is an empowering, sensuous novel about a woman who leaves her twenty-year marriage when she sees her potential self through the eyes of a younger man. A fresh spin on the ever-popular Sherlock Holmes phenomenon, ARROWOOD tells the story of a private investigator and contemporary of Holmes who understands people, not clues, and despises his celebrated peer's wealthy clientele and showy forensic approach to crime.

Harlequin UK and NA hope to increase sales of existing authors through their partnership and are actively seeking new authors to further broaden the scope of their list on a global scale.

About Harlequin UK
Harlequin UK is made up of two separate businesses. The trade division, which currently publishes under the MIRA and MIRA Ink imprints, is rebranding and from summer 2016 will publish under the newly created HQ imprint, which carries the tagline "One Place. Many stories." HQ will publish across a number of genres, including crime, contemporary and women's commercial fiction, nonfiction and YA. The Mills & Boon division is one of the most-recognized romantic fiction publisher in the world. Harlequin UK is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world with operations in 18 countries.

About Harlequin
Harlequin (Harlequin.com) is one of the world's leading publishers of books for women, with titles issued worldwide in as many as 34 languages and sold in up to 102 international markets. The company publishes more than 110 titles monthly and more than 1,300 authors from around the world. Harlequin is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world with operations in 18 countries. For more information, please visit Harlequin.com and Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks. Follow Harlequin on Twitter: @HarlequinBooks.