Matt Haig

Matt Haig's writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent, and The Sydney Morning Herald. The Dead Fathers Club is his American debut but his second published novel following The Last Family in England (2004), a reworking of Henry IV, Part I from the point of view of a black Labrador named Prince.
Shadow Forest, his first book for children, was published in the UK in May 2007; and in the USA as Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest in June 2007.
His next book for "grown-ups will be The Possession of Mr Cave in May 2008, to be followed by a children's novel called The Runaway Troll.
He now lives in Leeds but grew up in Newark-on-Trent where he went to a school much like Philip's in The Dead Fathers Club.

On 5 Mar 2009 Matt won the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award for Shadow Forest. When he won he said:

 “To say I was shocked is an understatement. I was halfway through a book event at a school when suddenly I turned around and saw a Blue Peter camera crew burst in to hand me the award. I nearly hyperventilated! I was up against some very stiff competition so I couldn’t believe I’d won my category let alone the overall prize.”

Matt Haig on his teen novel, The Radleys:

 

"This is a story about growing up, first and foremost.  About how we learn to come to terms with who we are, independent of the ideas our parents had for us.  About how we decide our own identities.  As well as what shapes those identities - who we choose to love, and hate, admire and fear.  It is about how denying ourselves can sometimes be more dangerous than succumbing to tempation.  This is the story I wanted to tell. I never set out to write a vampire story, but vampires were the obvious choice.  After all, as family secrets go, you can't get much bigger than finding out you are actually a full-blown creature of the night.  And hopefully it fits as a metaphor for teenage life.  A life full of physical changes, forbidden cravings, and feelings of being an outsider.  In that sense, we've probably all been vampires at some stage."

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Featured Books, with extracts by Matt Haig

The Radleys
Matt Haig
A Lovereading4kids 'Great Read' you may have missed 2011 selection. Dripping in blood, this is a story of family secrets so terrible that they shouldn’t be uncovered...Rowan and Clara think they are ordinary teenagers. They live quietly with their ordinary Mum...
Format: Paperback - Released: 07/07/2011
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The Runaway Troll
Matt Haig
The filthy world of trolls is revealed in its full and gruesome glory in this hugely entertaining story about poor Troll-Son who, in addition to his other many woes, has the misfortune to share an eyeball which is almost always...
Format: Paperback - Released: 05/08/2010
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The Radleys
Matt Haig
Dripping in blood, this is a story of family secrets so terrible that they shouldn’t be uncovered...Rowan and Clara think they are ordinary teenagers. They live quietly with their ordinary Mum and Dad doing all the things that their friends...
Format: Paperback - Released: 05/07/2010
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Shadow Forest
Matt Haig
Winner of the overall Blue Peter Book of the Year 2009 and category winner of ‘the book I couldn’t put down’.   A dramatic adventure story set in an enchanted magical world. Samuel Blink’s life changes forever when a giant log...
Format: Paperback - Released: 01/12/2007
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Shadow Forest
Matt Haig
Be warned! Don’t go for a walk in the shadow forest lest you might not return. Poor Samuel Blink must go into the dreaded woods to somehow find his sister and bring her back alive somehow. With fast-flowing action and...
Format: Paperback - Released: 03/05/2007
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