Sam Beckbessinger is a bestselling author and screenwriter whose work straddles novels, television, and interactive storytelling. She first achieved widespread acclaim with Manage Your Money Like a Fucking Grownup, which has since been published in six countries. She has also co-authored the teen body-horror novel Girls of Little Hope and contributed to Marvel’s Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire. Other creative projects include the climate fiction project Survive the Century, which was featured in New Scientist and Gizmodo, and writing for the internationally broadcast series “Jungle Beat.”
Now, she’s sinking her teeth into adult fiction with Femme Feral, a darkly comic novel about a perimenopausal werewolf, which comes out tomorrow (April 9). Packed with characters that are painfully relatable in all the best imaginable ways, it’s as fearsomely ferocious as it is ferociously funny – paws down the most entertaining time we’ve spent with a horror book all year.
Taking familiar tropes of transformation and feminine rage and setting them against the pressures of family and career, Femme Feral focuses on Ellie, a chronic overfunctioning entrepreneur and mother who chalks up her sudden peculiar physical changes to the perimenopause — until she starts to suspect that she might be turning into a werewolf. As her heightened strength and anger spin out of control, she’s forced to face the dangers they pose to her family, career and herself, all while learning how to contain her inner beast.
Marking the UK release of the book tomorrow, CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman sat down with Beckbessinger to discuss how Femme Feral navigates the intersection of feminine rage and perimenopause, the pressures of family and professional ambition, and how her deft handling of humour and horror serves as a perfect vehicle for examining the darker side of human nature.
Femme Feral will also be published in the United States on May 12, 2026, and in South Africa on May 22, 2026.
