Description

*LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023*
*WINNER OF THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2024*
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS ADCI LITERARY AWARD*
‘Delicate and strong… I loved it’ Maggie O’Farrell’
‘Darkly vivacious… mesmerising’ Guardian
‘Immaculate’ Financial Times
‘A triumph’ Daily Telegraph

For readers who loved Sorrow and Bliss or Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – an unforgettable story of a mother and daughter whose lives are upended when a charming new couple move in next door.

Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly – her clever, headstrong, teenaged daughter.

Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday’s book. Soon they are in and out of each others’ homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo’s polish lies something else, something darker. For beneath Vita’s charm lies a desperation and a certain entitled ambition – to have a daughter just like Dolly, all to herself.

Publisher Review

A novel both delicate and strong, illuminating the disturbing and the extraordinary to be found in the every day. Sunday is a beguiling and beguiled narrator, and her story an examination of the disjunction between humans’ private and public selves. I loved it — Maggie O’Farrell Lloyd Barlow makes her wary, vigilant, poetic voice the star in a mesmerising debut * Guardian * Lloyd-Barlow’s prose sings… a beautiful, bittersweet debut * Daily Telegraph * What a glorious, unforgettable character Vita is. And I loved Sunday’s voice too, so unique, right from the off. It showed me things about autism that will stay with me. A genuinely valuable book, but more importantly I enjoyed being inside its world — Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley A memorably authentic, at times painfully affecting, portrait of a singular woman navigating life’s challenges and still finding her way to happiness on her own terms * Daily Mail * Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow’s is a distinct and poetic new voice. This novel about the complex desires behind our closest relationships is undercut with the darkness of Sicilian folklore: the fisherman who promises away his child; the lover who is a wolf; a caged magpie; burning fields — Clare Pollard, poet and author of Delphi Funny, lyrical, deft and devastating. Full of longing and love — Amy Sackville, author of Painter to the King At once sharply perceptive and lyrically written, All The Little Bird-Hearts is an emotional and though-provoking exploration of autism * CultureFly * Moving, funny and lyrical * iPaper * Expect to be moved * Sainsburys Magazine * Scintillating… a tense and subtly nuanced look at an intense friendship between two women — Elizabeth Morris * Crib Notes * A mesmerising story, impeccably written: I couldn’t put it down — Anstey Harris, author of WHEN I FIRST HELD YOU If you would like your heart smashed into tiny pieces in the most beautiful way possible, then here you go — Jen Campbell