Groundbreaking Book on Obsessive Love SMITTEN by Dr Tom Bellamy – aka “Dr L” – Snapped up by Watkins Media and Pre-empted by St Martin’s Press

We are thrilled to announce that neuroscientist Dr Tom Bellamy’s book Smitten: Romantic Obsession, the Neuroscience of Limerence and How to Make Love Last, has been acquired by Watkins Media in the UK, with an audiobook publishing with Bolinda, and in the United States by St Martin’s Press. SMITTEN investigates the under-explored area of limerence – obsessive love – through the latest ideas in neuroscience, and sheds light on the little-understood element of the human experience: infatuation. It offers practical guidance for those experiencing limerence and seeking emotional balance. You can pre-order the book here.

Former Watkins Commissioning Editor Lucy Carroll bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Juliet Pickering, with Commissioning Editor Sophie Blackman now editing the book. Audio rights for the UK and Commonwealth were won at auction by Bolinda, while US rights were pre-empted by Senior Editor Anna deVries at St Martin’s Press. The hardback and audio editions will be published in the UK on 8 April 2025, with the US edition following in Autumn 2025.

Dr Tom Bellamy says, ‘I'm delighted to be publishing SMITTEN with Watkins, who were so supportive of my vision for a science-based approach to practical self-help. Having blogged about limerence and its impact on relationships for seven years, it's great to now be able to bring that vision to life, and explain how the fundamental neuroscience of intense infatuation affects people's lives. Working together to craft the book into a guide that makes sense of obsessive love, and learn how to manage it, has been a fantastic experience.’

‘Neuroscientist Dr Tom Bellamy is just the person to help people manage their limerence, combining empathy and advice with groundbreaking science,’ said Sophie Blackman. ‘“Dr L” offers important tips on how to manage this little-known phenomena that is experienced by so many people, and we're excited to be championing his book at Watkins.’

Watkins Head of Marketing & Publicity Laura Whitaker-Jones added: ‘As Dr. Bellamy has proven through his blog and website, which receive around 120,000 hits per month and for which views have exceeded 3 million overall, there is an audience of readers clearly very curious about the science underpinning love and attraction. I particularly love that in the book he marries his extensive research with comments from those who have experienced limerence first-hand, allowing him to thoroughly dive into the ins and outs of obsessive love in an approachable, frank and engaging style. It is our hope, after reading this book, that anyone struggling with unwanted feelings negatively impacting their wellbeing can use this book to find emotional equilibrium.’

Juliet Pickering says: ‘I believe that SMITTEN will become an essential and classic book on romantic love, and submitting it to publishers has led to some fascinating and brilliant conversations. I look forward to readers being able to identify and move past their own limerence, and hopefully Tom’s book will ensure many happier relationships are able to thrive!’

SMITTEN

“Butterflies” in the stomach, intrusive thoughts, fantasies about imaginary scenarios, mood swings from euphoria to despair… aren't these all the familiar hallmarks of new love? Not quite. These are characteristics of the psychological state of “limerence”, also known as obsessive, passionate or addictive love that can become unhealthy.

Millions of people will experience limerence at some point in their life, and in this book, neuroscientist Dr Tom Bellamy explores advances in neuroscience since the term was coined in the 1970s, and sheds light on this little-understood element of the human experience. Discover:

• What drives limerence

• How to recognise limerence in yourself and others

• How to manage the phases of addiction to another person

• How to move past it to sustain longer, more fulfilling relationships.

With supportive advice about next steps, this book will help readers struggling with unwanted feelings to find emotional equilibrium.

About Tom Bellamy

Dr Tom Bellamy, PhD is a neuroscientist and Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham. He received a PhD in Neuroscience from UCL in 2001 and held a personal fellowship at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge from 2004 to 2010. He has published over forty scientific papers, abstracts and book chapters on esoteric aspects of neurophysiology. He now writes about how the mechanisms of neurophysiology can help us understand human behaviour. He started the blog “Living with Limerence” in 2017, where "Dr L" offers practical guidance on coping with unwanted infatuation. Page views have exceeded 3 million. The blog is an active online community that also offers guides and courses.

Visit the Living with Limerence website.

Anne de Courcy honoured with the Biographers’ Club Exceptional Contribution Prize

Picture credit: BookBrunch

We are delighted to announce that celebrated biographer Anne de Courcy is this year’s recipient of the Biographers’ Club Exceptional Contribution Prize, recognizing her exceptional career encompassing eleven books over the past four decades.

Anne was presented with the award at the Biographers’ Club Christmas Party on Monday (11 December 2023), held at Albany in Piccadilly, London. Club chairperson Jane Ridley remarked on Anne’s dedication to the craft across her many works, citing in particular de Courcy's ‘ground-breaking’ SNOWDON: THE BIOGRAPHY, as well as the support she has offered over the years to both aspiring and established biographers.

The Biographers’ Club was founded in 1997 to support, promote and connect literary biographers throughout the research and writing process and their careers. The Exceptional Contribution prize has been awarded by the Club annually since 2009, with Anne joining the ranks of honourees including Michael Holroyd, Selina Hastings, Claire Tomalin, Hermione Lee, and 2022 winner A.N. Wilson.

About Anne de Courcy

Anne de Courcy is a well-known writer, journalist and book reviewer. In the 1970s she was Woman’s Editor on the London Evening News until its demise in 1980, when she joined the Evening Standard as a columnist and feature-writer. In 1982 she joined the Daily Mail as a feature writer, with a special interest in historical subjects, leaving in 2003 to concentrate on books, on which she has talked widely both here and in the United States.

A critically-acclaimed and best-selling author, she believes that as well as telling the story of its subject’s life, a biography should depict the social history of the period, since so much of action and behaviour is governed not simply by obvious financial, social and physical conditions but also by underlying, often unspoken, contemporary attitudes, assumptions, standards and moral codes.

Anne sits on the committee of the Biographer’s Club, and was previously the chairperson of the group. Her recent biographies, all of which have been serialised, include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY, DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON; THE BIOGRAPHY, written with the agreement and co-operation of the Earl of Snowdon. Based on Anne’s book, a Channel 4 documentary Snowdon and Margaret: Inside a Royal Marriage, was broadcast in June 2008.

THE FISHING FLEET: HUSBAND-HUNTING IN THE RAJ, was published in July 2012. Her book, MARGOT AT WAR published in November 2014, was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Book of the Year award. Her latest book is FIVE LOVE AFFAIRS AND A FRIENDSHIP (published in the US as MAGNIFICENT REBEL), a biography of Jazz Age icon Nancy Cunard.

Praise for Anne de Courcy

‘De Courcy paints a rich canvas.’ – The Sunday Times

‘Meticulously researched and sparklingly witty’ – Jane Shilling, Must Reads, Daily Mail

‘Anne de Courcy combines the perseverance of a social historian with the panache of the novelist’ – The Times

‘Intoxicating descriptions… meticulous detail’ – New York Times

‘She can make you laugh or break your heart, but she will never bore you.’ – Martin Rubin, The Washington Times

‘Anne de Courcy has a humorous tone, which I find very engaging, and she draws research from letters, memories and diaries.’ – Santa Montefiore, Good Housekeeping, ‘The Books That Changed My Life’

Visit Anne's website

Chatto to publish ground-breaking new memoir from Kerry Hudson, LOWBORN

Becky Hardie, Deputy Publishing Director at Chatto & Windus, has acquired UK and Commonwealth (ex. Canada) rights to LOWBORN: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns by award-winning novelist Kerry Hudson. Rights were bought from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedman as part of a two book deal.

LOWBORN is a deeply personal book which will see Hudson return to the towns she grew up in around the UK: she lived in seven places before the age of 15, in a succession of council estates and B&Bs for the homeless, where she attended nine primary schools and five secondary schools. In returning to these places, she hopes to uncover long buried truths about her own life but also seeks to illuminate what life is really like for Britain’s poorest today. Hudson brings her own experiences and her authentic voice to one of the most urgent and pressing issues of our times.  

Kerry Hudson will document her journey around the country for the Pool where she will be a regular contributor in the lead up to publication of Lowborn in January 2019. Her first piece will run on Wednesday 25 October.  You can also follow her on Twitter: @thatkerryhudson.

Kerry Hudson comments:  ‘To write a book like this, and begin to try and answer questions I’ve had since my youth, is truly something I never imagined might happen. Alongside my own story, Lowborn will also tell those of so many in the UK who are often overlooked, exploring subjects that I feel desperately need to be highlighted. I’m incredibly happy to work once again with Chatto & Windus and with an editor as brilliant and astute as Becky knowing they feel as passionately as I do that these are stories that need to be given voice.’

Becky Hardie comments: ‘Using her own troubled childhood as a map, Kerry Hudson’s Lowborn will take a hard look at what it means to be poor in post-Brexit Britain. We are so proud to be Kerry’s publisher – she is a force for good in our world – and Lowborn will be a crucially important, timely and affecting book. We need this book, just as we need Kerry Hudson.’

Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Her first novel, Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (Chatto & Windus, 2012) was the winner of the Scottish First Book Award and was shortlisted for the Southbank Sky Arts Literature Award, Guardian First Book Award, Green Carnation Prize, the Author’s Club First Novel Prize and the Polari First Book Award. Kerry’s second novel, Thirst (Chatto & Windus, 2014), won France’s most prestigious award for foreign fiction the Prix Femina Etranger.

Kerry founded The WoMentoring Project and has written for Grazia, Guardian Review, Observer New Review, Metro and YOU magazine. She has represented the British Council in South Korea, mentored with IdeasTap Inspires and TLC, teaches for the Arvon Foundation and was commissioned by the Writers’ Centre Norwich to give a provocation on diversity as part of their ‘National Conversation’ series.

4th Estate acquire SLAY IN YOUR LANE: THE Black Girl Bible in 9-way auction

Helen Garnons-Williams, Publishing Director at 4th Estate, has bought SLAY IN YOUR LANE: The Black Girl Bible by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinene, in a hotly-contested auction involving nine publishers, from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann Agency. Rights secured are British Commonwealth excl. Canada. Publication is scheduled for Spring, 2018.

SLAY IN YOUR LANE is a guide to life for a generation of black British women inspired to make Lemonade out of lemons, à la Beyonce. Filling a keenly-felt void in books focused on their experiences, SLAY IN YOUR LANE touches on work, dating, representation, education and health, and takes a look at how being black and female affects each of these areas - as told by a bevy of successful black women. It’s about recognising and celebrating the strides black British women have already made, whilst inspiring those who want to do the same and challenging complacency and status quo to forge a better, visible future.

Infectiously smart, funny and furious, Yomi and Elizabeth are part of an ongoing conversation online about the recent crop of inspirational books, and the women that write them. For them, the question is: where is our voice? Between Sandberg's Lean In and Amoruso's #GirlBoss, what is out there for black British women trying to navigate their formative years in a world in which they're largely sidelined?

SLAY IN YOUR LANE is the answer. Yomi and Elizabeth jump into the conversation on behalf of their friends and themselves, tackling issues unique to being young, female and black. From 25 year-old beauty entrepreneur Florence Adepoju to BAFTA award-winning director Amma Asante, they have tracked down successful black British women across a variety of industries, and have interviewed them throughout the book, pulling them into the spotlight alongside their own experiences. Yomi and Elizabeth hope to highlight the stories of some of the country’s most accomplished and yet simultaneously underrepresented women. 

The idea is to build a bright and brilliant campaign around SLAY IN YOUR LANE, utilising regular media, social media platforms (#SIYL), and spreading the word via the women involved. A call to action for black British women, the book not only aims to motivate and galvanise them but to inspire and enlighten all to the reality of their experiences. 

Yomi and Elizabeth are well aware that black women may have been confined to a proverbial lane. But that doesn’t mean they won’t slay in and outside of it.

www.slayinyourlane.co.uk

Twitter: @slayinyourlane