Tabitha Suzuma was born in London, the eldest of five children. She attended a French school in the UK and grew up bilingual. However, she hated school and would sit at the back of the class and write stories, which she got away with because her teachers thought she was taking notes. Aged fourteen, Tabitha left school against her parents’ wishes. She continued her education through distance learning and went on to study French Literature at King’s College London.
After graduating, Tabitha trained as a primary school teacher and whilst teaching full-time, wrote her first novel.
A NOTE OF MADNESS tells the story of seventeen-year-old Flynn, a piano prodigy who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In 2004 Tabitha Suzuma left classroom teaching to divide her time between writing and tutoring. This gave her time to write her next novels:
– FROM WHERE I STAND – a psychological thriller about Raven, a deeply disturbed teenager in foster care who self-harms and harbours a dreadful secret.
– WITHOUT LOOKING BACK – about teenage dance sensation Louis, who suddenly finds himself uprooted from his home and whisked abroad on holiday by his mentally unstable father, until he sees his face on a missing person’s poster.
– A VOICE IN THE DISTANCE – a sequel to A NOTE OF MADNESS about Flynn and his continuing struggle to cope with his bipolar disorder without jeopardising his career or losing the girl he loves.
– FORBIDDEN – Maya and Lochan are in love… But they are brother and sister. Published in six different languages, this is her most controversial and heart-breaking novel to date.
– HURT (out Sept 2013) – At seventeen, Matheo Walsh is Britain’s most promising diving champion. He is wealthy, popular – and there’s Lola, the girlfriend of his dreams. But then there was that weekend. A weekend he cannot bring himself to remember. All he knows is that what happened has changed him. Mathéo is faced with the most devastating choice of his life. Keep his secret, and put those closest to him in terrible danger. Or confess, and lose Lola for ever . . .
Tabitha Suzuma’s books have been nominated for a number of awards including the Carnegie Medal, the Waterstone’s Book Prize, the Jugendliteraturpreis and the Branford Boase Book Award. She has won the Young Minds Award, the Stockport Book Award, and the Premio Speciale Cariparma for European Literature.
