Cally Taylor

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Cally Taylor is best known for her alias C.L. Taylor, a Sunday Times bestselling crime author. As Cally Taylor she wrote romantic comedies published by Orion Publishing Group and as C.L. Taylor, she publishes psychological thrillers through HarperCollins. On 16 July 2024 she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Northumbria in Newcastle-on-Tyne [1]

Contents

Biography

Taylor was born in Worcester and obtained her degree in Psychology from the University of Northumbria in Newcastle-on-Tyne. After graduating, she moved to London for two years and then spent 13 years in Brighton, where she began to write. She worked as a graphic designer, web developer, instructional designer. She now lives in Bristol, with her partner and their son, and writes full-time.

Work

Taylor first began writing short stories in 2005. In 2006, she won two short story competitions, the Helen Mullin Awards and the Bank Street Writers competition, and was also runner-up in the Woman's Own short story competition. She has had numerous stories published in women's magazines and newspapers including the Sunday People [2] and the Sunday Express. [3]

Taylor's debut novel, Heaven Can Wait, won the Pink Thong Award for Best Debut in the Chicklit Club 2009 awards and was the first book ever to score ten out of ten in the club's rating system. [4]

Her second novel, Home For Christmas, was made into a film by JumpStart Productions, directed by Jamie Patterson, and starring Lucy Griffiths, April Pearson, Karl Davies, Derren Nesbitt, Amanda Piery and Shirley Jaffe [5]

Her first psychological thriller, The Accident, sold over 150,000 copies in the UK alone and reached number 3 in the Amazon UK Kindle Chart. [6] The BookSeller magazine named The Accident 'One of the Top Ten Bestselling Debuts of 2014'.

The Lie, ranked at number 5 in the Sunday Times Bestseller charts in the first full week of publication [7] and remained in the top 20 for five weeks. It also hit the number one spots on Amazon.co.uk Kindle, Kobo, Google Books, iBooks and Sainsbury ebooks and took the number 2 spot below The Girl On The Train [8] in The Bookseller Official E-Book Sales Ranking for May 2015. [9] The Lie was shortlisted for two Dead Good Books Reader Awards in 2015: Most Recommended Read [10] and Most Exotic Location. [11] The Lie has been optioned for TV by The Forge. [12]

The Missing, was ranked at number 6 in the Sunday Times bestseller chart. [13] and sold over 100,000 paperbacks within a year of publication. [14]

The Escape, went to number 2 in the Sunday Times bestseller chart [15] and won the Dead Good Books Hidden Depths Award for Most Unreliable Narrator [16]

The Fear, reached number 6 in the Sunday Times bestseller chart [17]

Sleep, her first hardback, hit number 4 in the Sunday Times original fiction chart [18] and was selected as a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. [19] In July 2019, Cally appeared on the Sara Cox show on ITV alongside actor Ross Kemp and the Kaiser Chiefs' frontman Ricky Wilson. [20]

Taylor's novels have been published in the UK and US and translated into over twenty-five languages including Chinese, Russian, Hungarian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Taiwanese, French, Italian, Polish, Indonesian, Croatian, Norwegian, and Czech. [21]

Taylor is represented by Madeleine Milburn, formerly of Darley Anderson Literary, TV and Film Agency, and now head of Madeleine Milburn Literary, TV and Film Agency.

Bibliography

Romantic comedies

Psychological thrillers

Young adult thrillers

Short Story Collections

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References

  1. ↑ "Prolific author awarded honorary degree from Northumbria University".
  2. ↑ Taylor CL (2015) The Curtain Twitcher. Sunday magazine. 26 April 2015 p 28
  3. ↑ CL Taylor (26 April 2015). "Goodbye My Lover: Short story by The Lie author CL Taylor | Books | Entertainment | Daily Express". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  4. ↑ "Chicklit Club - Pink Thong Awards 2009 - our choices for best books of the year". www.chicklitclub.com. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  5. ↑ "UK Cinema Release Dates | Search | home for christmas". www.filmdates.co.uk. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  6. ↑ Walters HM (2015) A writer with two heads. Writer's Forum #162 p 7
  7. ↑ The Weekly Charts. Review Magazine. The Guardian. 9 May 2015
  8. ↑ Tivnan Tom (2015) The Lie fails to derail Hawkins' train. The Bookseller 3 July 2015. p 12
  9. ↑ Official E-Book Sales Ranking. The Bookseller. 3 July 2015 p13
  10. ↑ "The Dead Good Recommends Award for Most Recommended Book - Dead Good". 15 June 2015. Archived from the original on 15 June 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  11. ↑ "The Patricia Highsmith Award for Most Exotic Location - Dead Good". 15 June 2015. Archived from the original on 15 June 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  12. ↑ "Interview: C.L. Taylor, Knowle's thriller queen |". 15 March 2017.
  13. ↑ "THE MISSING is a No. 6 Sunday Times bestseller - Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency".
  14. ↑ "THE MISSING by C. L. Taylor sells over 100,000 copies in paperback - Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency".
  15. ↑ "The Escape is the UK's No.2 Bestseller! - Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency" . Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  16. ↑ "The Dead Good Reader Awards 2017". 9 June 2017.
  17. ↑ "The Fear by C.L. Taylor No.6 on the Sunday Times bestseller chart".
  18. ↑ "C.L. Taylor's Sleep at No. 4 in second week of sales".
  19. ↑ "Halls, Horowitz and Braithwaite make Richard and Judy Book Club picks | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  20. ↑ "The Sara Cox Show Episode 30".
  21. ↑ "cally taylor - Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency" . Retrieved 5 December 2019.
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