Description
From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting and haunting Christmas short story
**Named a book to look out for in 2024 by the Sunday Times, Guardian and BBC**
**A small hardback edition featuring an afterword by the author**
'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'
Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees - and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.
One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst - and the path of her life is changed forever.
'Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke has made the very notion of genre seem quaint' Guardian
'A miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' Madeline Miller
**With exquisite illustrations by Victoria Sawdon**
From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting and haunting Christmas short story
About the Author
Susanna Clarke's previous novel Piranesi won the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award and was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was first published in more than 34 countries and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. It won British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a collection of short stories, some set in the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was published by Bloomsbury in 2006. She lives in Derbyshire.
Reviews
Praise for Susanna Clarke: 'Clarke creates a world beyond our wildest imagination that also tells us something profound about what it is to be human -- Bernardine Evaristo, Women's Prize Chair of Judges 2021
What a world Susanna Clarke conjures into being -- David Mitchell
A miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling -- Madeline MIller
Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke made the very notion of genre seem quaint * Guardian *
One of the greatest and most interesting writers of fantasy in the past hundred years or more * Times Literary Supplement *
A treasure, washed up upon a forgotten shore, waiting to be discovered -- Erin Morgenstern
Purely joyful reading -- Naomi Alderman
Utterly compelling - bewildering, intense, moving, shocking, combining a haunting fantasy with sharp insight -- Rowan Williams
As beloved fantasy writer Clarke's atmospheric and gently funny fable about the holiness of nature, so gracefully illustrated by Victoria Sawdon, unfurls, Merowdis experiences a transformative encounter. * Booklist *
Book Information
ISBN 9781526675217
Author Susanna Clarke
Format Hardback
Page Count 64
Imprint Bloomsbury Circus
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC