If you had told me two years ago that I'd spend my final years of sixth form balancing English essays, flashcards on the cognitive interview, film theory notes, and... oh yeah, writing a 100,000 word horror novel, I would have laughed. Or cried. But I would not have been surprised (I know myself well). Yet here I am: Beneath the Hollow Moon comes out this Halloween, and I'm both thrilled and mildly terrified. (Terrified not of Razor-Shins, my folkloric monster, but of the idea of people I know actually reading my newborn scary child).
Writing a book while studying for A Levels is, in short, chaos. But it's also been the most rewarding chaotic journey of my life. This blog post is my attempt to share a bit about the journey-- what the book is, why I wrote it, and how on earth I managed to do it between revision sessions, too many iced coffees, a part-time job, and marketing my newest release The Anatomy of a Perfect Murder.
What is Beneath the Hollow Moon?
At its heart, Beneath the Hollow Moon is a YA horror novel set at a haunted summer camp in the deep woods of northern Maine. Filled with creaky cabins, eerie folklore, a chaotic (but oh-so lovable found family dynamic), first love, and a monster with sharp teeth. The story follows Ada, a girl who finds herself trapped in a web of secrets involving an old mill, a creature in the woods, and some very strange campers. There are friendships, betrayals, romance, and a lot of creepiness.
But horror is just the skin. Underneath, it's really a story about memory, grief, and justice. I wanted to write the kind of book I would have devoured at sixteen: funny and heartfelt, but also guaranteed to make you want to keep the light on at night.
Writing Through Exam Season
Let's rewind. Picture me, seventeen, sitting in my school library. My friends are revising biology and psychology, and I'm... secretly writing a scene where a camper gets abducted by something in the woods (sorry to my private study teacher). I'd always loved writing, but it wasn't until the urgency of exam season collided with my incessant need to be constantly typing that I realised writing had become an escape that I needed.
Every free period, bus ride, late-night hour, I set myself little goals: 500 words over breakfast, 1000 in this free period, one chapter once I'd finished my revision. Some days it worked, and some days it didn't, but somehow, by the time I sat my last exam, I had a finished novel.
Balancing Writing, Studying, and Everything Else
This is where everyone asks: how did you balance it? The honest answer: I didn't, not perfectly. Some days my attention in forensic psychology was wholly on-- wait how can I write this into my book?? and sometimes my English Literature essays were fuelled by caffeine, not sleep. And between shifts at work, where I spent hours up to my elbows in suds and dirty pans, and the constant hum of book marketing emails (I was also doing a lot of work as a TikTok influencer at this point - brand deals, partnerships, sponsorships), there was plenty of nights where I didn't sleep until the sun came up, one completed to do list immediately replaced with a new one, where I wondered how I was going to hold it all together.
But writing gave me the energy to keep going, as cringy as it sounds. Instead of feeling like everything was swallowing me whole, I had this secret world-- a summer camp and a cast of characters that felt so real to me-- I could retreat into. And if anything, juggling everything actually made me better. English essays were easier when I'd already churned out thousands of words that week. Psychology revision made me fascinated by memory, which fed into Ada's story. Even Film Studies played its part-- I was constantly thinking about mise en scene, character theory, and atmosphere. Studying a few horror films certainly helped.
So, while it was exhausting, I don't regret it at all. School and work fed the book; the book kept me sane during school and work.
Everyone told me I would regret doing everything at once. I worked 30 hour weeks during mocks, and didn't take time off during exam season, but I still came out with A*A*A, and I hope this book was as successful as my grades.
The Teen Author Thing
I still can't really grasp the phrase "teen author". It sounds like something between insult and compliment, as if a good book is extra impressive because it was written by a "teen author", because teens shouldn't be able to write well. But honestly? Being a "teen author" is surreal.
I published my first book, The Enigmatic End to Bethany Reed at fifteen, and it got 3 publishing offers in its first year. I recently reread it, and was both impressed with the scale and quality of it, (though it does need an edit), and it fed into my realisation that no one writes teenagers better than teenagers. We get it-- the energy of the teen thing. The characters mess up, they argue with their parents, they feel like they'll never fit into the world and when they do: it's ecstatic. They love deeply and impulsively, and they make stupid decisions that make excellent stories. Something I will always love about writing young adult fiction is that you are catching characters at an incredibly important life stage-- and you get to play with that however you want.
What the Book Means to Me
In lots of little ways, this book is a time capsule of everything I was feeling in sixth form: the pressure, friendship, late-night talks about the future, a constant sense of being on the edge of something huge. Ada, my protagonist, is messy and stubborn and hurting, but she's also brave in ways she doesn't even realise. I think, in writing her, I was trying to make sense of my own fears and hopes.
Could you even say that A Levels, and the future, were the scary monsters in the woods haunting us and plucking us off one by one?
Horror is the perfect genre for teenagers in that way-- we're already living with fear, so why not give those fears claws and teeth?
Moving Forward
Now, as I write this surrounded by boxes ready to go to uni (in 3 days!), it feels like I'm stepping into a new chapter. Not just in life, but in writing. Publishing this book in one of the scariest and most rewarding life experiences I've ever had feels fitting: it's about endings and beginnings, about burning things down and finding out what survives.
I hope readers, and students, see themselves in it. We are all caught between childhood and adulthood, fear and freedom, past and future.
Advice for Pursuers
I know a lot of people reading this might be students, have part-time jobs, and be creatives. So, here's what I learned:
- You don't have to wait until you're older to start. You are never too young to write a book, paint, start a business, whatever. If it matters to you, do it now.
- It won't be perfect, and that's fine. First drafts are supposed to be disasters, A Levels are stressful, and life is messy.
- Caffeine helps.
Beneath the Hollow Moon is available for preorder now, and releases worldwide on the 31st of October.