Tim Bowler

Tim Bowler is the author of twenty books for children, teenagers and young adults. He has won 15 awards, including the Carnegie Medal, the pre-eminent UK award for children's literature, for his novel River Boy.

He has been described by The Sunday Telegraph as ‘the master of the psychological thriller’ and by The Independent as ‘one of the truly individual voices in British teenage fiction’.

Biography

Bowler was born in Leigh-on-Sea in 1953 , and educated at Westcliff High School for Boys, and at the University of East Anglia where he studied Swedish and Scandinavian studies.

His first published novel was Midget (1994), a psychological thriller set in Leigh-on-Sea. This has been followed by several other novels: Dragon's Rock (1995), a thriller set in Devon; River Boy (1997), a story about love and bereavement and winner of the Carnegie Medal; Shadows (1999), a gritty love story; Storm Catchers (2001), a kidnap thriller; Starseeker (2002), a mystical exploration of love, loss and music, also made into a play; Apocalypse (2004), an allegory about the future of mankind; Frozen Fire (2006), a philosophical thriller about the nature of reality; Bloodchild (2008), a story about memory, secrets and betrayal and Buried Thunder (2011), a tense and haunting thriller.

He has also written Blade, an eight-book urban thriller series. Reviewing Blade for The Bookbag, Jill Murphy wrote, "Nobody in children's writing is producing anything like this. It's electrifying." In some countries (e.g. Germany and Korea) the Blade series is being published in four books, each book consisting of two of the UK titles.

Tim Bowler also speaks at conferences, schools, book festivals and makes regular appearances on radio. He lives in a village in Devon and writes in a small stone outhouse.

Bibliography

• Midget (1994)
• Dragon's Rock (1995)
• River Boy (1997)
• Shadows (1999)
• Storm Catchers (2001)
• Starseeker (US title: Firmament) (2002)
• Apocalypse (2004)
• Tales from the Dark Side series:
  • Blood on Snow (2004)
  • Walking with the Dead (2005)
• Frozen Fire (2006)
• Bloodchild (2008)
• Blade series:
  • Playing Dead (2008)
  • Closing In (2008)
  • Breaking Free (2009)
  • Running Scared (2009)
  • Fighting Back (2009)
  • Mixing It (2010)
  • Cutting Loose (2010)
  • Risking All (2010)
• Buried Thunder (2011)

Awards and nominations

• 1995 Midget won the Boekenwelp Award (Belgium)
• 1995 Midget won the New York Library Book of the Teen Age (USA)
• 1997 River Boy won the Carnegie Medal
• 1999 River Boy won the Angus Book Award
• 2000 Shadows won the Angus Book Award
• 2000 Shadows won the Lancashire Children's Book of the Year
• 2002 Storm Catchers won the South Lanarkshire Book Award
• 2002 Storm Catchers won the Stockton Libraries Award
• 2002 Storm Catchers won the Stockport Schools' Book Award
• 2007 Frozen Fire won the Hull Book Award
• 2007 Frozen Fire won the Highland Book Award
• 2007 Frozen Fire won the Redbridge Book Award
• 2007 Frozen Fire won the Stockport Schools Book Award
• 2008 Frozen Fire won the South Lanarkshire Children’s Book Award
• 2009 Frozen Fire won the Southern Schools Book Award

External links

• Tim Bowler
• Tim Bowler at Fantastic Fiction
• The motif of the wraith in Tim Bowler's early work
• Blade mini-site
• Tim Bowler at The Bookbag
• Tim Bowler at Oxford University Press