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John
Award Winning Novelist
Editor & Journalist
Travels from: New York City / Sag Harbor, N.Y.

“John Searles brings the misfits among us to life with the clarity of Carson McCullers—and then scares us with the brilliance of Stephen King. Her Last Affair is a perfect, page-turning example of the heart and horror that makes me love his work so very, very much.” — Chris Bohjalian, #1 Bestselling author

John Searles is the best-selling author of the novels Her Last Affair, Help for the Haunted, Strange but True and Boy Still Missing.

Hailed as “riveting” by The New York Times and “hypnotic” by Entertainment Weekly, Boy Still Missing inspired Time magazine to name him a “Person to Watch,” and the New York Daily News to name him a “New Yorker to Watch.” His second novel, Strange But True was praised as “sinister and complex” by Janet Maslin of The New York Times, “extraordinary” by Publishers Weekly, and was named best novel of the year by Salon. Help for the Haunted was named a Boston Globe Best Crime Novel of the Year, an Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Must List, and won the American Library Association’s Alex Award. John’s most recent novel, Her Last Affair, was named a Best New Book by People magazine and praised as “a tense, intricately woven tale of heartbreak, retribution and redemption” by Publishers Weekly and “a twisted thriller that explores despair and loneliness with cinematic flair” by Kirkus Reviews.

In 2019, Strange But True was adapted for film by the producers of La La Land and released in theaters nationwide by Lionsgate. Now streaming on HBOMax and Amazon Prime, the film stars the award-winning ensemble cast of Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Brian Cox, Blythe Danner, Nick Robinson and Margaret Qualley. The movie was praised as “suspenseful and haunting” by The Hollywood Reporter and “a twisty tale of tragic secrets” by the Los Angeles Times.

Since 2001, John has appeared frequently on NBC’s Today Show to discuss his favorite book selections. He’s also appeared on CBS This Morning, Good Day New York, Live! With Regis & Kelly, NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross and CNN to discuss his books.

For 23 years, John was the books editor of Cosmopolitan, also serving as the magazine’s brand director, executive editor, and editor-at-large. His personal and travel essays, book and restaurant reviews have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post and numerous other magazines, newspapers and websites. He has a master’s degree in creative writing from New York University and lives in New York.

John's Featured Titles

Her Last Affair

Mariner Books |
Fiction Thriller

“A winner: tense and terrifying with a twist you’ll never see coming. You won’t soon forget these characters and the shocking ways their lives intersect.” — Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me

Every marriage has its secrets….

Skyla lives alone in the shadow of the defunct drive-in movie theater that she and her husband ran for nearly fifty years. Ever since Hollis’s death in a freak accident the year before, Skyla spends her nights ruminating about the regrets and deceptions in her long marriage. That is, until she rents a cottage on the property to a charming British man, Teddy Cornwell….

A thousand miles away, Linelle is about to turn fifty. Bored by her spouse and fired from her job when a questionable photo from her youth surfaces on social media, her only source of joy is an on-line affair with her very first love, a man she’s not seen in nearly thirty years, Teddy Cornwell…

While in New York City, Jeremy, a failed and bitter writer, accepts an assignment to review a new restaurant in Providence. Years ago, Providence was the site of his first great love and first great heartbreak—and maybe, just maybe, he’ll look her up when he’s back in town…

Part page-turning thriller, part homage to film noir, and dazzling in its insight into the often desperate desires of the human heart, Her Last Affair is a tense and atmospheric novel of love lost and found again.

Help for the Haunted: A Novel

William Morrow |
Literary Fiction

John Searles’s Help for the Haunted is an unforgettable story of a most unusual family, their deep secrets, their harrowing tragedy, and ultimately, a daughter’s discovery of a dark and unexpected mystery.

Sylvie Mason’s parents have an unusual occupation—helping “haunted souls” find peace. After receiving a strange phone call one winter’s night, they leave the house and are later murdered in an old church in a horrifying act of violence.

A year later, Sylvie is living in the care of her older sister, who may be to blame for what happened to their parents. Now, the inquisitive teenager pursues the mystery, moving closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night—and to the truth about her family’s past and the secrets that have haunted them for years.

Capturing the vivid eeriness of Stephen King’s works with the compelling quirkiness of John Irving’s beloved novels, Help for the Haunted is that rare story that brings to life a richly imagined and wholly original world.

Boy Still Missing

William Morrow Paperbacks |
Mystery/Thriller

It is June 1971. Dominick Pindle, a tenderhearted but aimless Massachusetts teenager, spends his nights driving around with his mother and dragging his wayward father out of bars. Late one evening, Dominick’s search puts him face-to-face with his father’s seductive mistress, Edie Kramer. Instantly in lust, he begins a forbidden relationship with this beautiful, mysterious woman. Before long, though, their erotic entanglement leads to a shocking death, and Dominick discovers that the mother he betrayed hid secrets as dark and destructive as his own.

Charged with the exhilarating narrative pace of a thriller and set during a complicated and explosive era, Boy Still Missing is the critically acclaimed debut novel from John Searles. It renders a deeply affecting portrait of a boy whose passage into adulthood proves as complex and impassioned as the history that unfolds before his eyes.

Strange but True

William Morrow |
Mystery/Thriller

Now a Major Motion Picture starring Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Blythe Danner.

“Sinister and complex…. You’ll race right through it.”—New York Times

After a mysterious fall from his New York City apartment, Philip Chase has moved back home with his mother, Charlene, a bitter woman who has never fully accepted the death of her younger son, Ronnie, five years earlier. Surrounded by memories of the family he no longer has, and trying to forget the reasons he left New York, Philip is in stasis.

But everything changes late one windy February night when Ronnie’s high school girlfriend shows up on their doorstep. A sad young woman who still bears the scars of the accident that took Ronnie’s life, Melissa is nine months pregnant. The father, she claims, is Ronnie.

Now Philip and his mother must confront not only Melissa’s past but also their own: the secrets each has buried and the lies each has told. But not everyone wants the past exposed…. At once a moving story of redemption and a heart-stopping work of suspense, Strange but True “will hold you transfixed” (Salon.com).

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RECKLESS GOSSIP!

John dishes about his very colorful childhood as the gay son of a rugged, cross-country truck-driver, to his years as a top editor at the world’s sexiest, most scandalous women’s magazine, COSMOPOLITAN, and his many years appearing on morning television shows, like NBC’s Today Show, the inner-workings of the publishing industry and more… This talk is full of outlandish and heartwarming and occasionally name-droppy stories from an author who has lived a unique and compelling life with more twists and turns than your favorite book!

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Honors, Awards & Recognition

Her Last Affair, was nominated for Best Novel by The Strand Magazine.

Her Last Affair, was named a Best New Book by People magazine and praised as “a tense, intricately woven tale of heartbreak, retribution and redemption” by Publishers Weekly and “a twisted thriller that explores despair and loneliness with cinematic flair” by Kirkus Reviews.

Help for the Haunted, was named a Boston Globe Best Crime Novel of the Year, an Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Must List, and won the American Library Association’s Alex Award.

Strange but True was praised as “sinister and complex” by Janet Maslin of The New York Times, “extraordinary” by Publishers Weekly, and was named Best Novel of the Year by Salon.

Strange But True was adapted for film by the producers of La La Land and released in theaters nationwide by Lionsgate. Now streaming on HBOMax and Amazon Prime, the film stars the award-winning ensemble cast of Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Brian Cox, Blythe Danner, Nick Robinson and Margaret Qualley. The movie was praised as “suspenseful and haunting” by The Hollywood Reporter and “a twisty tale of tragic secrets” by the Los Angeles Times.

Boy Still Missing, was hailed as “riveting” by The New York Times and “hypnotic” by Entertainment Weekly, inspiring Time magazine to profile him in the magazine, naming him a “Person to Watch.”

Media Kit

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