31.5
‘A magnificent folkloric retelling rich with passion and relevance for our modern world . . . Stunning!’ ANYA BERGMAN, author of The Witches of Vardø
Brigid Lowe grew up in a remote Welsh-speaking community on Ynys Môn, with her younger sister and Irish immigrant parents. She now lives with her children in that part of Scotland known as Yr Hen Ogledd – The Old North – formerly joined with Wales in one Cumbric nation. She studied literature at Bangor, completed a doctorate at Oxford, and went on to teach and research at Sheffield and Cambridge universities, publishing a book and many essays on the art of fiction. Brigid traces her descent from travellers, circus performers, mill workers and gallowglass warriors. She takes photographs of flowers, forages her food, clambers pinnacles, and swims in ice caves and bottomless pools.
They say I was a girl made of flowers. Another one of their stupid narrow human lies. How could you make a girl out of flowers? I’ve always been flowers. I was flowers forced into the mere form of a woman. So don’t expect me to be some sweet pretty thing. Or expect it if you like, I don’t care – but you’ll be disappointed. Flowers don’t care about you. I don’t care about you. I don’t care a damn for any of you, except the ones of you I hate. ‘A masterpiece . . . an intricate, otherworldly, complex and dramatic novel that held me spellbound’ BARBARA ERSKINE
Darkness is falling across the land. All that stands against it are three determined women: slave queen Goewin, the reclusive sorceress Arianrhod and Blodeuwedd, a woman conjured from flowers. Can they unite against the deadly force who threatens them all? The sadistic ambition of the magician Gwydion wreaks havoc across the forests, cliffs and fields of the kingdom. With the earth itself at stake, Goewin, Arianrhod and Blodeuwedd must unleash their most uncanny powers to challenge him. In this vital and visceral novel, Brigid Lowe casts ancient light on desire, sex and our relationship with nature to bring these Celtic heroines to explosive, sensuous, blossoming new life.
‘A rich, visceral fever dream unafraid to take you to the darkest corners of myth and magic’ LUCY HOLLAND ‘Absolutely exquisite prose . . . intensely atmospheric . . . shimmering with folklore and magic’ EMMA VAN STRAATEN
Jacket illustration © Wlada Jurczanka Author photograph © Ide Crawford A Harvill book penguin.co.uk/vintage
I S B N 978-1-787-30525-0
9
The Bloody Branch HB AW FINAL.indd 1-7
781787 305250
90000
£16.99 £20.00
03/11/2025 10:54