Headline Home lands Healthy Living James debut in four-way auction

Headline Home has won a four-way auction for cookbook Healthy Living James, from food blogger and health coach James Wythe, focused on helping people with ill health and food allergies make affordable and enjoyable meals.  

The deal was struck by publishing director Lindsey Evans, who bought world rights from Caroline Wood at Felicity Bryan Associates following a four-way bidding war. Healthy Living James will be published by Headline on 3rd March 2022 in hardback. 

Wythe is a 32-year-old professional food blogger known as ‘Healthy Living James’. "Ten years ago his life changed overnight when he went to bed after a meal out with friends and the next morning he couldn’t get up," Headline Home said. "He would remain bed-bound for the next two years, unable to communicate, eat, sleep, tolerate light or sound, watch TV or look at his phone. After six months of tests he was diagnosed with ME and told there was no cure but, on the advice of a nutritionist, he cut out all gluten and dairy from his diet and very slowly began to get better. 

“Cooking became James’ daily challenge and the thing that got him out of bed three times a day. He decided to start a blog to share the recipes he was creating, in order to try and help others looking for gluten-free and dairy-free recipes, and in 2016 ‘Healthy Living James’ was born. The blog and his accompanying social media pages have 250,000 followers.”  

His debut cookbook is “packed with easy, healthy recipes, and is for anyone who is suffering ill health, has food allergies, is totally new to cooking, or simply lacks time,” Headline Home said. The 80 recipes are based around a variety of health needs and each one will be: gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, mainly plant-based, simple to follow and with a step-by-step approach to cooking from scratch as well as being affordable, using supermarket ingredients and easy to adapt with ingredient swaps. 

Wythe said: “This is the book that I needed when I was struggling with my health. At the time, I had no idea how to cook and no energy to concentrate on complicated instructions. I was looking for quick, easy and healthy recipes with short ingredients lists and a basic step-by-step guide but I couldn’t find anything suitable. So I decided to teach myself. The aim with all the recipes is to show others how easy it can be to cook using simple supermarket ingredients when you have limited time, energy or skill. Plus, they can all be made using basic kitchen equipment. This is exactly how I taught myself to cook eight years ago and I am delighted that the team at Headline Home will be publishing my debut cookbook.” 

Evans said: “I am thrilled to be working with James on this book, which is going to be such a help to so many people suffering with ill health or food allergies. Through his recipes, James shows us the transformative power of home cooking and eating well. Knowing how ill he was for the two years he was bed-bound, and how he literally got back on his feet by making changes to his diet, is a wake-up call to all of us to be listening to our bodies and to be making the right choices about what we eat. James’ simple, healthy recipes will show us how.”