Liz Hyder
Liz Hyder is a writer of true courage.
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 will be published in hardback, audio and eBook in February 2022.
Bearmouth
When I sees him later, at end time after shifts, they hav slit his nose. The ryte nostril. Like they always do. See if yore man enuff to work. We all got the scar. Tis how you kno yore a Bearmouth boy.
Life in Bearmouth is one of hard labour, the sunlit world above the mine a distant memory. Reward will come in the next life with the benevolence of the Mayker. Newt accepts everything, that is until the mysterious Devlin arrives. Newt is soon looking at Bearmouth with a fresh perspective – questioning the system and setting in motion a change of events that could destroy their entire world.
In this powerful and brilliantly original debut novel, friendship creates strength, courage is hard-won and hope is the path to freedom.
Winner of the Branford Boase Award 2020. Winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2020 for Older Readers. The Times Children’s Book of the Year 2019. Shortlisted for the Great Reads Award 2020. Shortlisted for the UKLA (UK Literacy Association) Awards 2021. Nominated for the 2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal.