The UK’s best-selling Black female writer of adult fiction is marking her 20th year as a published author by releasing her 18th novel in paperback next month.
Award-winning British-Ghanaian author Dorothy Koomson unveils her novel My Other Husband on 13 April in paperback form. The book has been available in hardback since 2022.
My Other Husband is published by Headline, which will also publish a special anniversary edition of her debut novel, The Cupid Effect, in July 2023.
My Other Husband follows the experiences of bestselling novelist-turned-scriptwriter Cleo Forsum who gets caught up in a series of terrifying murders that someone is trying to frame her for.
“She thinks she knows why . . . but she can’t tell the police or prove her innocence because then she’d have to own up about her ‘other husband’, the book synopsis reads.
Dorothy’s novels include the Sunday Times bestsellers The Friend, That Girl from Nowhere, The Ice Cream Girls, The Woman He Loved Before, The Chocolate Run and My Best Friend’s Girl.
Dorothy started to write because she couldn’t find the type of stories she liked to read – pacy, thought-provoking, gripping reads with complex, multifaceted characters.
She also makes reference to her Ghanaian heritage in her books.
She told AKADi Magazine in 2020: "There’s almost always an element of Ghana in my books. The characters are often of Ghanaian heritage or they’ll cook Ghanaian food. Sometimes I use cities or regions in Ghana as surnames. And, of course, The Beach Wedding - my quick read - is set in Ghana and Brighton."
Her reputation for surprising readers with the unexpected has led to her being crowned the ‘Queen of the Big Reveal’.
She has sold over 2.5 million copies in the UK alone, and her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Her third book, My Best Friend’s Girl, was selected for the Richard & Judy Summer Reads of 2006.
And her novels: The Ice Cream Girls and The Rose Petal Beach were both shortlisted for the British Book Awards in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
A TV adaptation loosely based on The Ice Cream Girls was first shown on ITV1 in 2013.
Dorothy featured on the 2021 Powerlist as one of the most influential Black people in Britain, appeared in GQ Style as a Black British trailblazer, and was a judge for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Dorothy, who lives in Hove, regularly mentors aspiring authors, uses her platform to support new writers and demystifies the world of publishing in ‘The Happy Author’ podcast.
She is a regular speaker in libraries and supports the work of Little Green Pig, a Brighton and Hove-based charity that offers free writing workshops for young people in need.
Find out more about Dorothy and her work here: www.dorothykoomson.co.uk
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