'Teachers said I was stupid - now I've got a huge publishing deal and new book'

Award-winning writer Samanthe Lee Howe has returned with her caller publication The Soul Thief, a gripping Gothic fearfulness acceptable successful Victorian London

December is each astir festive amusive with family, but if the commercialised merriment becomes excessively nauseating wherefore not hunker down with a bully fearfulness novel? Award-winning writer Samanthe Lee Howe has returned with her caller publication The Soul Thief, a gripping Gothic fearfulness acceptable successful Victorian London.

Released connected 5 December, it arrives conscionable successful clip to capable Christmas stockings with thing that volition support you gripped for hours erstwhile excessively overmuch Turkey means you are confined to the sofa. Known for her acheronian and suspenseful narratives, Howe promises a chilling travel done supernatural and intelligence twists successful her latest enactment that volition enactment a chill successful your bones and person you looking implicit your enarthrosis successful fear.

It is simply a definite stake for the large screen, arsenic Samantha penned the movie mentation of her deed caller The Stranger In Our Bed during the pandemic. That led to a globally palmy movie present disposable connected Amazon starring Samantha Bond. As a result, Howe received respective awards,- including ‘Best British Film Script’, and the movie besides won Best Thriller astatine the National Film Awards.

Her espionage thriller bid The House of Killers, besides published by Harper Collins, is slated to beryllium a TV play adjacent year. Not atrocious for a miss who was voted ‘the slightest apt to succeed’ astatine school! Howe, who has spoken antecedently spoken astir suffering from abuse, is present a subsister ambassador for the Yorkshire based foundation IDAS (domestic abuse).

The novelist told the Daily Express: “I ever wanted to ­follow my imagination of being a full-time author, but I was distracted by conscionable surviving. I spent a batch of clip making ends meet. My puerility wasn’t casual and I went done my full beingness reasoning I wasn’t susceptible oregon intelligent enough.

"Teachers astatine schoolhouse treated maine similar I was stupid. Then my hubby treated maine similar I was stupid. Nobody believed successful me, truthful erstwhile HarperCollins wanted to people my work, I could hardly instrumentality it in. To get a woody with a large publishing location that everyone has heard of was what I’d been aiming for each my life.”

A little-known information astir Sam is that she is nary alien to the fearfulness genre. Under the pseudonym Sam Stone, she has penned implicit 20 novels involving the acheronian arts, dipping into the worlds of vampires, zombies and alien penetration arsenic good arsenic a bid of Young Adult novels astir a Victorian Steampunk heroine. Last twelvemonth Sam launched her ain movie festival, the Sykehouse International Filmfest, that saw filmmakers from arsenic acold distant arsenic California, and galore celebrities, caput for the Yorkshire colony for a glittering red-carpet awards event.

The Soul Thief is published connected 5 December 2024 by HarperCollins.