The Dance Tree: A Novel

"An intriguing, haunting&nbsp;novel pulsing with raw, beautiful emotion. Kiran Millwood-Hargrave effortlessly intertwines the stories of women tenderly and sympathetically, creating a novel in which female courage and resilience shines brightly against a brilliantly evoked&nbsp;backdrop of claustrophobic horror."--Jennifer Saint, author of&nbsp;Ariadne &nbsp;"Some historical novels don'' just describe the past, they transport you there . . . An exceptionally beautiful portrait of women from the past, told in the most spellbinding prose."--Elodie Harper, author of the #1 London Times bestseller The Wolf Den In this gripping historical novel, the internationally bestselling author of The Mercies weaves a spellbinding tale of fear, transformation, courage, and love in sixteenth-century France. Strasbourg, 1518. In the midst of a blisteringly hot summer, a lone woman begins to dance in the city square. She dances for days without pause or rest, and when hundreds of other women join her, the men running the city declare a state of emergency and hire musicians to play the Devil out of the mob. Outside the city, pregnant Lisbet lives with her husband and mother-in-law, tending the bees that are the family's livelihood. Though Lisbet is removed from the frenzy of the dancing plague afflicting the city's women, her own quiet life is upended by the arrival of her sister-in-law. Nethe has been away for seven years, serving a penance in the mountains for a crime no one will name. It is a secret Lisbet is determined to uncover. As the city buckles under the beat of a thousand feet, Lisbet becomes caught in a dangerous web of deceit and clandestine passion. Like the women of Strasbourg, she too, is dancing to a dangerous tune. . . . Set in an era of superstition, hysteria, and extraordinary change, and inspired by true events, The Dance Tree is an impassioned story of family secrets, forbidden love, and women pushed to the edge.

Literature & Fiction

Hargrave, Kiran Millwood

United States

HarperVia

Literary

A beautifully written story of friendship, discovery, myths, and magic that the London Times called "reminiscent of fantasy greats such as Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman." Legends say that the island of Joya was once a place where songbirds sang in every tree and the islanders were free to come and go as they pleased. That was before the harsh-ruling Governor arrived, and ravens drove out the native birds. Now there are no songbirds, and the people are forbidden to travel beyond the forest that separates them from the rest of the island. But for Isabella, the legends of her island home have always seemed like more than just stories. And when a series of mysterious events shakes the community, it’s Isabella—daughter to the island’s only mapmaker—who will lead a party of explorers into the forest in search of answers. As the group ventures deeper and deeper into the island, dark secrets begin to surface, and the legends Isabella has listened to all these years show signs of coming to life. Debut novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave draws on the cultural folklore of the Canary Islands in this richly told story of a girl’s quest to map her own place in a world that legends alone have shaped. Advance Praise: "[R]eminiscent of fantasy greats such as Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman." --The London Times

The Cartographer's Daughter

Children's Books

Animals

Knopf Books for Young Readers

A beautifully written story of friendship, discovery, myths, and magic that the London Times called "reminiscent of fantasy greats such as Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman." Legends say that the island of Joya was once a place where songbirds sang in every tree and the islanders were free to come and go as they pleased. That was before the harsh-ruling Governor arrived, and ravens drove out the native birds. Now there are no songbirds, and the people are forbidden to travel beyond the forest that separates them from the rest of the island. But for Isabella, the legends of her island home have always seemed like more than just stories. And when a series of mysterious events shakes the community, it’s Isabella—daughter to the island’s only mapmaker—who will lead a party of explorers into the forest in search of answers. As the group ventures deeper and deeper into the island, dark secrets begin to surface, and the legends Isabella has listened to all these years show signs of coming to life. Debut novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave draws on the cultural folklore of the Canary Islands in this richly told story of a girl’s quest to map her own place in a world that legends alone have shaped. Advance Praise: "[R]eminiscent of fantasy greats such as Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman." --The London Times From the Hardcover edition.

The Girl of Ink & Stars

Yearling

The Island at the End of Everything

A poignant story filled with heart-warming courage as a young girl takes on a harrowing journey to be reunited with her mother. Ami lives on Culion, an island in the Philippines for people who have leprosy. Her mother is among the infected. Ami loves her home: with its blue seas and lush forests, Culion contains all she knows and loves. But the arrival of malicious government official Mr. Zamora changes her world forever. Islanders untouched by sickness are forced to leave for a neighboring island, where the children are placed in an orphanage. Banished across the sea, Ami is desperate to return to Culion before her mother's death. She finds a strange and fragile hope in a colony of butterflies. Can they lead her home before it's too late? Heartrending yet hopeful, celebrated newcomer Kiran Hargrave's novel is a story about loss, perseverence, and faith. A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Haunting Season: The instant Sunday Times bestseller and the perfect Halloween read

Pulley, Natasha

Purcell, Laura

Gowar, Imogen Hermes

Collins, Bridget

Hurley, Andrew Michael

Macneal, Elizabeth

Kidd, Jess

Genre Fiction

SPHERE

Kiran Millwood Hargrave was born in London in 1990. The British Shakespeare Assocation commissioned her first pamphlet Scavengers. Her poetry and short stories have been selected to feature in publications such as The New Writer, Aviary, The Forest Book of Bedtime Stories and Orbis. Last March was produced in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute to mark the centenary of Captain Scott's final expedition to the South Pole. This astonishing collection transports the reader to the 'last place without men' - a place that, for all our civilisation, we can still be rubbed to 'knuckles' by the extremity of the weather, the isolation. And though the poems are rooted in history, there is a chilling message here for the future: 'that water, with seeping insouciance, really can unmake stone'.

Last March

Poetry

Pindrop Press

The story of Orpheus's tragic quest into the underworld to rescue his true love Eurydice back from the dead is one that has haunted the western imagination for over 2,000 years through many tellings, re-tellings, appropriations and adaptations.A unique coming together of poetry, art and criticism, Orpheus and Eurydice explores the myth's impact through a graphic-poetic reconstruction of the story. Including critical reflections from leading thinkers, writers and critics, this is a compelling exploration of the enduring power of this tale.

Orpheus and Eurydice: A Graphic-Poetic Exploration (Beyond Criticism)

Freston, Tom de

Religion & Spirituality

Bloomsbury Academic

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Books by Hargrave, Kiran Millwood