Liz Hyder
Liz Hyder is a writer of true courage.
The Twelve
We are the echo in the cave, the footsteps that follow you in the dark, the shadows in the trees.
We are fur and feather, bark and bone. We are light and dark. Earth and sky. Sun and moon. We are as one…
It's supposed to be a treat for Kit, a winter holiday by the coast with her sister Libby and their mum. But as the solstice moon rises high in the sky, Kit and Libby are drawn to a mysterious white tower, only to face disaster when Libby vanishes. The world has rewritten itself, leaving Kit to navigate a reality where her sister has never existed. Even their mum doesn't remember her.
But then Kit meets Story, a local boy who remembers Libby perfectly. He teams up with Kit and together they embark on a perilous journey fraught with dangers beyond their wildest imagination, crossing a world steeped in ancient folklore. Can Kit and Story uncover the secret of the Twelve and rescue Libby before Time itself vanishes?
Winner of the Tir na n-Og Award, Best English language book 2025. Winner of the 2024 Nero Book Awards prize for Children's Fiction. A book of the year in both The Financial Times and The Guardian. One of The Observer's young adult books of the month. Children's Book of the Week in The Times.
The Illusions
At a time of extraordinary change, two women must harness their talents to take control of their own destiny...
Bristol, 1896. Used to scraping a living as the young assistant to an ageing con artist, Cecily Marsden's life is turned upside down when her master suddenly dies. Believing herself to blame, could young Cec somehow have powers she little understands?
Meanwhile Eadie Carleton, a pioneering early film-maker, struggles for her talent to be taken seriously in a male-dominated world, and a brilliant young magician, George Perris, begins to see the potential in moving pictures. George believes that if he can harness this new technology, it will revolutionise the world of magic forever — but in order to achieve his dreams, he must first win over Miss Carleton...
As a group of illusionists prepare for a grand spectacle, Cec, Eadie and George's worlds collide. But as Cec falls in love with the bustling realm of theatre and magic, she faces the fight of her life to save the performance from sabotage and harness the element of real magic held deep within her.
The Illusions is the captivating new novel from the much-lauded author of The Gifts. Inspired by real-life illusionists and early film pioneers, this astonishing story of women and talent, magic and power, sweeps you into a world where anything is possible and nothing is quite as it seems...
The Illusions was published in UK hardback in June 2023.
The Gifts
She gasps for air. Newly-formed impossible wings dig hard into her back as she looks up at the canopy of trees. Papery leaves whirl down towards her in a cascade of colour. Remnants of the summer past. It reminds her of something and she grasps for the memory deep in the labyrinth of her mind. The tiny motes of dust trapped in the sunbeams of her father's library from when she was a child. Patterns in the air. Angel dust, he used to call it. Angel dust.
Set in 1840, The Gifts opens with a young woman in agony, staggering alone through a forest in Shropshire as a huge pair of wings rip from her shoulders. Meanwhile, when rumours of a 'fallen angel' cause a frenzy across London, a surgeon desperate for fame and fortune finds himself in the grips of a dangerous obsession, one that will place the women he seeks in the most terrible danger...
Liz Hyder's debut adult novel, The Gifts was published in UK hardback, audio and eBook in February 2022. The UK paperback was published in September 2022. In April 2023, The Gifts was published in the US.
Runner-up for the 2023 McKitterick Prize.
About Liz
Liz Hyder is a writer and creative workshop leader. Bearmouth, her debut for Young Adults, won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize for Older Readers, the Branford Boase Award and was named Children's Book of the Year in The Times. The Gifts, her acclaimed debut book for grown-ups, was published in 2022 and was runner-up of the McKitterick Prize. The Illusions, her second book for grown-ups, was published in 2023. Her latest novel, The Twelve, for young adults, was published by Pushkin Press in October 2024.
Liz is available for interviews, features, events and creative writing workshops.
Read more about LizBooks
Find out more about Liz’s novels — The Twelve, The Illusions, The Gifts and Bearmouth — and the inspiration behind them.
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