Louie Stowell

Born in London, Stowell grew up on a cultural diet of Doctor Who, Tolkien, comic books and Just William – elements of which can all be found in her acclaimed children’s novels. After writing her university thesis on comic books, Stowell worked in various occupations from PR and publisher for Ladybird books to in-house non-fiction writer, which she abandoned on the basis that ‘you get complaint letters if you say Jupiter has the wrong number of moons in a fact book, which really isn’t fair, because they keep discovering new moons, the cheats.’

Her debut children’s novel, the hilarious The Dragon in the Library, was published in 2019 and was followed by The Monster in the Lake (2020) and The Wizard in the Wood (2021), with a standalone fantasy novel entitled Otherland appearing the same year. In 2022 Stowell embarked on the first book in the Loki series, Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good, which focused on the eponymous Norse trickster god’s attempts to escape his current form as a human schoolboy by proving his altruism. Brilliantly funny and boasting Stowell’s distinctive cartoons, the book became a bestseller and a hugely popular Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month. To date there have been two further entries in the series Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Taking the Blame (also published in 2022) and Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Ruling the World (2023).