LoveReading4Kids Says
We introduced you to Tom Becker earlier in the year with his superb debut – Darkside (winner of a major children’s book award) and we’re thrilled now to have just finished reading his second. Lifeblood is taut, gripping and mysterious and is set in a rich fantasy world where murders and dangerous secrets are commonplace.
Definitely one to read when you have time to read it in a sitting as you won’t be able to put it down. This is the second instalment in the Darkside series that includes Darkside and now Nighttrap.
LoveReading4Kids
About Darkside: Lifeblood
Winner of the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize, this Gothic horror set in a dark netherworld will chill you to the bone!
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About Tom Becker
Tom Becker won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2007 at the age of twenty-five with his first novel, DARKSIDE. As well as further books in the DARKSIDE series, Tom has written several standalone YA horror novels, including DARK ROOM for the acclaimed Red Eye horror series from Stripes. Since Tom Becker learned to hold a pen, he wanted to become a writer. In fact, when he was 5 years old, he wrote in a notebook that it was his dream was to be an author. Aged 25, Tom has realised that dream with publication of his first novel, Darkside in January 2007.
Tom's early enthusiasm for books and reading was encouraged by his parents who were voracious readers. Their family home was cluttered with bookcases and piles of novels. Tom spent most of his childhood curled up in an armchair reading fantasy novels by Brian Jacques, and later graduated to grown-up novels by David Eddings and Guy Gavriel Kay.
Tom studied History at Oxford University and was struck by the otherworld-ly atmosphere of this academic institution. He used to spend long days studying and reading in the University library and always felt intrigued by the atmosphere there - perhaps that is why a library is such an important setting in Darkside.
Tom started writing Darkside in 2005, it took him three months to complete and he is now working on more books in the series. He drew inspiration from film noirs such as The Asphalt Jungle and The Big Sleep (hence the glasshouse scene in Darkside), and comicbook writers such as Alan Moore.
Aside from reading, Tom's big love in life is music. He is still reeling from the break-up of his two favourite bands, Rocket From the Crypt and Sleater-Kinney. Tom's other passions include supporting Everton Football Club and consisting on a diet of fry-ups and fish fingers. Tom lives in London.
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