My Book Deal Moment by C. L. Taylor

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

C L Taylor's latest book, The Accident, is published by Avon HarperCollins and is out today, so we asked her to share her book deal moment with us to coincide with her publication celebrations. 

I’ve always followed my heart. When I was 19, I chose to go to university in Newcastle, despite never visiting the city. When I was 24, and newly redundant, I moved to Brighton even though I only knew one person and didn’t have a job lined up. And, when I was 38, I decided to write a psychological thriller instead of a romantic comedy.

That might not seem like a particularly risky decision, but I’d already had two romantic comedies published and they’d done well. Heaven Can Wait had sold to 14 countries and there was talk of Home for Christmas being optioned for a film. So why turn my back on that and write a psychological thriller instead? You could blame the sleep deprivation (my baby son was still waking me every two hours at night), you could blame loneliness (I was living in a city where I only knew two people, one of whom was my partner) or you could blame my heart.

I’d been thinking about writing a different kind of novel for several months; a dark, gripping, page-turner. Having a baby had changed me and I needed to take all my darkest fears – abusive exes, isolation, something happening to my child – and pour them into a story. And so I started writing.

My agent told me The Accident was the best book I’d ever written, but that didn’t stop me feeling utterly terrified when she sent it out on submission. What if I’d made a terrible mistake? What if no one wanted it? What if I’d ruined my career? My heart faltered, but Maddie told me to keep the faith. My novel would find a home.

I held my breath when her email arrived.

‘UK deal with Avon HarperCollins’ the subject line said.

And that’s when I started to cry.