Kate Hilton Books In Order

Publication Order of Quill and Packet Mystery Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Kate Hilton is a contemporary, humor and comedy, and romance author that is best known for her debut novel “The Hole in the Middle” that she published in 2013. Before she became a fiction author, Hilton held a variety of careers. She started in publishing, where she worked as an editor before she went to law school and graduated as a litigator in 1999. She soon discovered that litigation was not something that she liked but was lucky enough to be recruited by the Dean’s office at the law school. She was in charge of strategic planning, director of special projects, and manager of complex files though she found it an amazing experience. Since 2004, she got involved in major gift fundraising for her university and ran the alumni relations and fundraising arm of the school until she quit to become a fiction author. While she is best known as a fiction author, her nonfiction writing has been featured in a variety of publications. Her work on a range of topics from reinvention, creativity, and working motherhood has been published in the likes of “The Huffington Post,” “Canadian Living,” and “The National Post.” Kate also has a lot of experience in media and has appeared on “CTV Morning,” “Breakfast Television,” “Global Morning,” “CBC Early Edition,” and other regional and local shows. She currently lives with her husband, two sons, a stepdaughter, and their dog in Toronto.

Hilton has always wanted to become an author even as she pursued her many careers. However, she never felt that she had a story to tell until a few months to her 38th birthday. Suddenly, a character that commented on everything and anything named Lil Parker invaded her headspace and would not quit. Once she got the character to settle down a bit, she began fleshing out her story. She got interested in putting together the story of a Generation X woman that juggles the demands of family and a career. The lead in her debut novel “Hole in the Middle” is a character struggling to come to terms with being a successful woman, wife, friend, mother, daughter, and employee. The novel traced her journey toward a better self-awareness of how she had undermined her happiness y setting impossible standards for herself. She wrote the novel while working full time as she made use of the weekends and evenings trying to resolve the many questions in her mind. Some of the questions included what it meant to have it all and whether she had achieved that. During this time, she was dealing with a nagging perfectionism that made it difficult for her to appreciate what she had accomplished. In the end, she concluded that it is impossible to have it all, and as long as one ticks several boxes on their list and is happy that is all that matters.

Just like many of her contemporaries, Kate Hilton set out to get published the traditional way. She had queried agents in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Hilton had even got requests for the full manuscript but never got to the publishing stage. Since she was convinced that it was impossible to get noticed by publishers and agents as a new writer, she believed the best way for her was self-publishing. She published her debut on Amazon Kindle and sold 12,000 copies on the first week, after a vigorous promotion campaign on social media. It is then that she was contacted by “The Midwife of Venice” author Roberta Rich who wanted Hilton to allow her to show it to Beverley Slopen her agent. The agent signed her on and in no time had sold the novel to the Canadian officer of HarperCollins. Among her many inspirations include Allison Pearson, Lionel Shriver, Helen Fielding, Jane Austen, Kate Atkinson, Jonathan Franzen, Nick Hornby, AS Byatt, and Nora Ephron.

Kate Hilton’s “The Hole in the Middle” tells of Sophie Whelan who fancies herself a modern superwoman. When she operating at peak power she can wheedle balky personnel, draft a bubbly Christmas letter, calm her irritable kids, arrange a dinner party for ten, and troubleshoot issues at work – all in a day’s work. But as she approaches her fortieth birthday, it seems her seemingly perfect life is unraveling as web-like fractures begin to appear. She is feeling hopelessly inadequate as a daughter and mother, is feeling jealous of her husband’s business partner who has all the hallmarks of a femme fatale, and is in conflict with her boss. But just as she is about to crack, a wealthy widow named Lillian Parker who she had made friends with when she was in university makes her an offer she cannot refuse. But she hesitates when Will Shannon who is Lillian’s nephew comes back onto the scene. She once considered him the love of her life and remembers the whirlwind that was their college romance. She looks back at the choices in love and life she has made in her life, but still cannot answer what it is that she wants in her life.

“Just Like Family” by Kate Hilton is a pretty insightful and witty novel that tells the story of how a woman juggles the needs of three husbands – an ex-husband, an almost-husband, and a work husband. She is also trying to figure out what a true family means. Avery Graham has managed to build a great life and has a great career as the principal assistant to the charismatic mayor of Toronto, Peter Haines. She is also living with Matt her boyfriend of fourteen years that has been nothing if not devoted. She has deep friendships that she has made over the years and a loving family that would do anything for her. But then Matt proposes and her past now comes back to haunt her. She had a disastrous marriage to a man named Hugh and cannot even think about making another lifetime commitment. Avery is starting to have second thoughts about Matt being the love of life since she has lately been spending a lot of time with Peter. She needs the advice of people who know her inside out but unfortunately Tara and Jenny her closest friend live too far from her. When the city hall is engulfed in a scandal, she needs to overcome her deepest fears about loss and love if she is to discover the true meaning of family.

Hilton’s “Better Luck Next Time” is the intriguing story of the daughters of Lydia Hennessey. She is an icon who demands the best from her daughter and can be icy cold and ruthless especially when she believes they are self-destructing. The eldest named Mariana has a promising career in journalism but is about to throw it all away alongside her marriage. The middle daughter Nina just came back from a medical mission abroad and is now a very different woman. The youngest daughter Beata is dealing with a hostile son that just learned he has a father that also did not know that he existed. In the meantime, Zoe their cousin is in a divorce that looks like a deathmatch even as Zack her brother who had based his recent dramedy on Lydia’s life is getting a lot of flak. Stepping out of Lydia’s shadow is the key to finding their paths though it would not be that easy. Over a year, the Hennessey children deal with the choice between taking life-altering risks of playing it safe, aging parents, new loves, raging teens, and crumbling bodies and marriages. As they go towards a new meaning of happiness they could just convince their parents that they were old enough to move out from their protective shadow.