Ninety-Six Hours is Christine Dawood’s memoir that tells the devastating story of what happened during the 4-day search for the lost Titan submersible that had her husband, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, aboard.

Christine came to Whitefox to tell her story exactly as she intended. She had received interest from traditional publishers who were pushing for a more sensationalist approach but her vision was to create something reflective and highly personal that dealt with her own experience of extreme loss and the anguish of the harrowing search. 

We struck a careful balance of applying sensitivity throughout the processes of bringing Ninety-Six Hours to life, while ensuring that the book was widely commercially available. Working closely with a structural editor, we made sure that the book told Christine’s story of family love as well as tragedy, with cherished family memories interwoven throughout.

For the cover design, we wanted to capture the gravity of loss while expressing a glimmer of optimism – the light at the end of the tunnel – to convey Christine’s strength and emotional survival. She wanted ‘love’ to be the key driver of her story. We decided on the poignant image of a woman, a representation of Christine, standing on the deck of a ship, looking out to sea, with the sun just poking through the clouds.

Christine wanted a global multimarket approach so we agreed on a royal jacketed hardback that was made available to the UK and US trade, as well as an ebook and audiobook.  To introduce her story to a wide audience, we partnered her with two highly-experienced publicists, one based in the UK and one in the US.