Psychotherapist's memoir The Incurable Romantic to L,B

Richard Beswick, publishing director at Little, Brown, has bought a memoir called The Incurable Romantic in which a psychotherapist, Frank Tallis, investigates tales of jealousy, longing and desire.

The book, described as "essentially Steven Grosz meets Henry Marsh", will provide an account of what it is like to work with patients suffering from the psychopathologies of love.

"I’ve always wanted to commission a book about obsessive love, since reading about de Clerambault’s syndrome, which is the subject of the Ian McEwan novel,” said Beswick, adding: "Tallis will do for clinical psychology and psychotherapy what Henry Marsh has done for neurosurgery: to write an authoritative, entertaining, and above all, sincere account of what it is like to work with patients suffering from the psychopathologies of love."

Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist who has held lecturing posts at the Institute of Psychiatry and King's College, London. In addition to academic papers, self-help and non-fiction, including a book called Love Sick for Perseus in 2005, he has written several novels in the past including Killing Time (Penguin), Sensing Others (Penguin), Mortal Mischief (Arrow), Vienna Blood (Arrow), Fatalities (Arrow), Darkness Rising (Arrow), Deadly Communion (Arrow), and Death and the Maiden (Arrow).

Little, Brown acquired world rights from Aitken Alexander and will publish in 2018.