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Headline scoops three new novels from CL Taylor
Headline has scooped three new novels from CL Taylor in a "heated" six-way auction.
Fiction publishing director Jennifer Doyle bought UK and Commonwealth rights to three new novels in an auction conducted by Madeleine Milburn.
The first novel, Notes on an Obsession, will publish as a lead launch for Headline in early 2027 and signals a new direction for the author’s twelfth adult thriller.
The synopsis states: "Notes on an Obsession is set in the psychology department at a prestigious Oxford college in 1995. When three students die in mysterious circumstances, lonely PhD student Ned suspects the college is covering up the real reason they died. As Ned’s suspicions grow, he realises someone doesn’t want him to get to the truth… and that his obsession with the deaths could put him in grave danger. Even if nothing is as it seems."
Taylor has had nine bestsellers and is the recipient of four Nielsen Silver Bestseller Awards. She has been selected three times for the Richard and Judy Book Club.
She said: "I am very grateful to Avon HarperCollins for nurturing my career since my first crime novel was published in 2013, but I’m excited for the next phase with Headline. Notes on an Obsession is the book of my heart; one that began 30 years ago when I sat at an electric typewriter and tried and failed to write. It’s a compulsive thriller, but it’s also a book about loneliness, grief and being on the edge of society, and I hope readers take the main character, Ned Marlowe, to their hearts. Jennifer Doyle’s excitement and enthusiasm for the idea, and her vision for my career, were irresistible and I’m excited to see where this partnership will take us. Huge thanks to Madeleine Milburn for brokering the deal."
Doyle said: "I couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome CL Taylor to Headline. I have long been a fan of Cally’s writing, and her ability to pull the rug from under your feet with her genius page-turners. Her characters are always so relatable, and you live every twist and turn of the story with them. We are so lucky to launch a reinvention of the CL Taylor brand with a book like Notes on an Obsession, which I think is Cally’s most ambitious book to date. When she first pitched the premise, I knew I had to publish it, and I can’t wait to get the book into the hands of readers everywhere."
Milburn said: "I’m absolutely thrilled about CL Taylor’s exciting new partnership with Jennifer Doyle at Headline. Notes on an Obsession is a twisty, propulsive page-turner, as well as thematically and emotionally ambitious in its exploration of loneliness, obsession and what it means to be on the outside looking in. This is CL Taylor at her very best, and I can’t wait for both loyal fans and new readers to discover and fall in love with this latest offering. This marks a bold direction in Cally’s career, and I’m excited to see Headline publish CL Taylor with such confidence and clear-eyed vision."
Notes on an Obsession will published in hardback, e-book and audiobook in early 2027.
