About Sam

Hello, new best friend!

I’m Sam Blood—urban fantasy author, emotional damage dealer, and full-time chaos goblin. Also, yes—that is my real name, and no—I’m not secretly a vampire. (Although I’d be open to offers.)

if you like magical creature companions, ride-or-die friendships, slow-burn heartbreak, morally complex besties, romantic tension you could cut with a sword, and a cast of creatures who deserve their own spin-offs, welcome to the party. My novels are basically: what if Studio Ghibli and The Hunger Games had a dramatic, sparkly love child raised by How to Train Your Dragon and She-Ra?

You’ll find eccentric dragon-parrots, sassy manticores, and the occasional villain who really just needs a good therapist.


I was born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand—home of hobbits, amazing coffee, and weather that can’t commit to a mood. I split my childhood between

Takapuna and Devonport. Takapuna was all beach and brunch; Devonport was where I was convinced I’d find a secret portal or accidentally summon a forest spirit. Frankly, if a portal to another world wasn’t hidden there, that was a missed opportunity. Spoiler: I did not find one. But I did find the writing bug, which is like a magical curse, only with more caffeine.

I was raised on VHS tapes of Dragonheart and Dragonworld, and books like Bruce Coville’s The Unicorn Chronicles, which gave me completely unrealistic expectations about finding my magical creature counterpart.


From the age of nine I started writing about the story of Shadows. It started from stories of magical creatures, the other halves of ourselves, who lived in another world. I'd tell these stories to my godsister to get to sleep, usually after her godmother made us copious amounts of apple crumble. It also grew from a short story I wrote, where a mysterious woman named Melissa Cameron visited three youths in a house where they were working on a project to change the world.

Oh, I was very popular at Belmont Intermediate—if by 'popular' you mean I was usually off in my own little world pretending to be a dragon on the playground. By myself. Yep, I was what you’d call a special boy. The kind of kid the PTA loves to gossip about.

At 14 years old, after encouragement from John Marsden, author of Tomorrow When the War Began, I submitted my manuscript for Shadows to the publishers but got rejected.

I shelved the manuscript, unsure how to make it better. I got into stand-up comedy. I tried to be an actor, a Zookeeper and a climate activist. Years later, my best friend Dean passed away suddenly. He'd always been the biggest advocate for Shadows, ever since we met on our first day of Intermediate school.

With Dean gone I wanted some way to honour the guy who had given me a friend when I'd had none. I poured all my memories of our friendship into the new Shadows manuscript, including our unique comedic banter, and published it in 2015. Books 2 to 6 quickly finished, completing the Shadows Series.

Since then readers from all over the world have read Shadows and sent me emails, including pictures of exactly what their own Shadow counterparts would look like! Because yes, apparently, people love my imaginary friends as much as I do.

After starting to mildly wonder what my happy ever after would ever look like in terms of finding my own princess, I got hand-delivered a more exciting story arc then any I had written. In 2022 I met Emasha, an amazing lawyer from Sri Lanka who was going to go home in a month, possibly forever, to work in the Supreme Court. Naturally, I declared those 30 days my personal mission: Operation Win Emasha’s Heart.

Emasha left for Sri Lanka, and getting the families on board proved to be a rollercoaster. Never before had I suspected myself to be in an international forbidden romance, essentially the main character in my very own romantasy novel.

Now... I am Emasha's family's favourite child! (Or I like to think so. They do feed me delicious amounts of parippu) Ema and I had the most beautiful Sri Lankan and kiwi style weddings, and returned home in 2024 to start our new life of book writing, career pursuits and possibly making a podcast about the entire experience.

Honestly? I still can’t believe I’m hers and she’s mine. And no, I’m not crying. You’re crying.

So yeah, that's me!

So if you’re into fantasy with ✨vibes✨, pain with plot armour, and characters you’ll want to adopt or fight (or both), you’re in the right place. Follow me on Instagram for books, banter, and occasional emotional ruin. 💀✨

Want to get in touch? Email me direct at sam@sambloodauthor.com 📚

Come for the monsters. Stay for the feelings.