THEO CLARE left school at fifteen. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, filmmaker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia. She had an MA in film from The American University in Washington, DC and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University, UK.
She wrote crime novels under the name Mo Hayder, and her fifth novel Ritual was nominated for the Barry Award for Best Crime 2009 and was voted Best Book of 2008 by Publishers Weekly. Gone, her seventh novel, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and her novel Wolf was nominated for Best Novel in the 2015 Edgar Awards and is currently being adapted for the BBC. Set primarily in an alternate universe, her most recent novel, The Book of Sand, will be published posthumously in early 2022.
Theo Clare was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in December 2020 and passed away in July 2021.
She leaves behind a husband and daughter, a powerful legacy of books, and an incredible number of people who loved and admired her.
SAND. A hostile world of burning sun.
Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins.
In the distance a group of people - a family - walk towards us.
Ahead lies shelter: a 'shuck' the family call home and which they know they must reach before the light fails, as to be out after dark is to invite danger and almost certain death.
To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs.
It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life - except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she's beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is ...
Two very different worlds featuring a group of extraordinary characters driven to the very limit of their endurance in a place where only the strongest will survive.
An utterly original novel from an extraordinary creative mind,
The Book of Sand is an absolute standout that's
impossible to put down.
Unique and fearless, Theo Clare had that rare ability to lead her readers into places that were genuinely terrifying and to conjure images that would linger and continue to disturb.
The Book of Sand is no exception.
I inhaled it. It's beautifully written and utterly compelling - I was completely subsumed in the Cirque and the fate of the familyI didn't want it to end.
Audacious, extraordinary and beautifully written ... it's absolutely awesome.Fearless and compelling, lyrical and devastating by turns, the story never slackens pace.
A stunning introduction to a wholly original world.
