All the Little Bird-Hearts

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What to expect

An unforgettable literary debut exploring motherhood, vulnerability, and the way the world closes ranks against those it considers to be different.

I lived for and loved a bird-heart that summer; I only knew it afterwards.

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 daughter, now on the cusp of leaving home.

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 Sunday has precisely what Vita has always wanted for herself: a daughter of her own.

'Glorious. Unforgettable' Melissa Harrison
'Funny, lyrical, deft and devastating' Amy Sackville
'A distinct and poetic new voice' Clare Pollard

(P) 2023 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Critics 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
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

User Reviews

Book 4.0
Narration 5.0
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5.0
CharlieBrook 25/08/2023

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