Headline Review swoops for debut novelist Clarke’s How to Find a Lost Love

Headline Review has acquired How to Find a Lost Love by debut novelist Norie Clarke.

Publisher Sherise Hobbs snapped up world rights from Juliet Pickering at the Blake Friedmann agency, for publication in January 2024.

How to Find a Lost Love "celebrates the joy of finding unexpected friendship in a story which also pays tribute to the lost art of writing a love letter". It revolves around newly single Jess, who responds to an advert for a lodger. She meets Joan, living alone in her 70s "in a Notting Hill house full of memories". When Jess learns Joan has a long-lost love, with whom she used to exchange letters via the Lonely Hearts column, Jess decides to search for him, "little realising that in Joan’s story lies her own unexpected new beginning".

Hobbs said: “How to Find a Lost Love is as life-affirming as it is romantic. The two lead characters challenge each other to make a switch⁠—Jess will come offline and start writing letters if Joan will brave going online; a leap which changes both their lives in the most remarkable of ways. We can’t wait for readers to discover it next year.”

Clarke commented: “I hope readers will grow to love Jess and Joan in How to Find a Lost Love as much as I loved creating them.”