Search History

Selected as one of the Best Australian Fiction titles for 2023 by Readings Books

After fleeing to Melbourne in the wake of a breakup, all Ana has to show for herself is an unfulfilling job at an overly enthusiastic tech start-up and one particularly questionable dating app experience. Then she meets Evan. Charming, kind, and financially responsible, Evan is a complete aberration from her usual type, and Ana feels like she has finally awoken from a long dating nightmare.

As much as she tries to let their burgeoning relationship unfold IRL, Ana can't resist the urge to find Evan online. When she discovers that his previous girlfriend, Emily, died unexpectedly in a hit-and-run less than a year ago, Ana begins to worry she's living in the shadow of his lost love. Soon she's obsessively comparing herself to Emily, trawling through her dormant social media accounts in the hope of understanding her better. Online, Evan and Emily's life together looked perfect, but just how perfect was it? And why won't he talk about it?

Search History is a sharply funny debut novel about identity, obsession, and desire in the internet age from one of the most perceptive and original new voices in Australian fiction.

"[A] quick-witted debut novel ...[Amy] Taylor writes in crisp and clever strokes. ... Search History is a light-hearted and earnest take on the challenges that courting has for those eager to hit search before the reply button." - BOOKS+PUBLISHING

"Perfectly captures the tragedy and comedy that is living and loving online ... with wit, humour, and insight." - DIANA REID

"A serious blend of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca with the pulse of modern-day existence. Search History delivers a real, emotional, and keenly heartfelt roller coaster. We can't help but root for Ana through her imperfections that are so endearingly perfect. She is all of us in our hilarious misfortunes and unexpected successes. She floats as does every word of this debut." - WEIKE WANG

"Amy Taylor's Search History is a razor-sharp and disturbingly familiar exploration of the way we live and look for love now. It made me want to delete my accounts." - ISABEL KAPLAN

"I squirmed in recognition on nearly every page of this witty, warm, and painfully honest novel. Ana's social media spirals and fear of vulnerability, her desire to construct an unblemished self both online and off, accurately reflect our ultra-modern anxieties. Search History begins as a novel of masochistic obsession before slyly transforming into a battle cry of radical self-acceptance." - CAITLIN BARASCH, author of A Novel Obsession

"In her incisive and clever debut, Amy Taylor examines how the Internet has transformed modern romance into a hall of mirrors. Search History is a novel brimming with humor, insight, and uncomfortable truths." - ANTONIA ANGRESS, author of Sirens & Muses

"Sharp, elegant, wry, wonderfully nuanced, and insightful ... a must-read for anyone interested in questions of love, relationships, and what it means to know another person in today's world of instant online gratification—or, really, to know anyone at all." - JANE PEK, author of The Verifiers