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Carrion Crow
- Author
- Heather Parry
- Narrator
- Olivia Vinall
- Publisher
- Transworld
- Publish Date
- 27 February 2025
- Run Time
- 7 hours 2 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Horror, ghost stories and supernatural fiction, Historical fiction, Psychological thriller, Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction
- Rating
- 4.0 (1 review)
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
A powerful and spine-tingling gothic tale exploring mother-daughter relationships, sexuality, and class.
There are some facts about the world that only your mother can teach you.
Marguerite had been confined for the sake of her wellbeing.
That’s what her mother had said.
Marguerite Périgord is locked in the attic of her family home, a towering Chelsea house overlooking the stinking Thames.
For company she has a sewing machine, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and a carrion crow who has come to nest in the rafters. Restless, she spends her waning energies on the fascinations of her own body, memorising Mrs Beeton’s advice and longing for her life outside.
Cécile Périgord has confined her daughter Marguerite for her own good.
Cécile is concerned that Marguerite’s engagement to a much older, near-penniless solicitor, will drag the family name – her husband’s name, that is – into disrepute. And for Cécile, who has worked hard at her own betterment, this simply won’t do.
Cécile’s life has taught her that no matter how high a woman climbs she can just as readily fall.
Of course, both have their secrets, intentions and histories to hide. As Marguerite’s patience turns into rage, the boundaries of her mind and body start to fray.
And neither woman can recognise what the other is becoming.
‘Bold, blazing, absolutely unforgettable’ Elizabeth Macneal, bestselling author of The Doll Factory
‘Probably one of the best books I've read this year! It felt like an unholy mix of Ottessa Moshfegh and Leonora Carrington, whilst still being very much its own thing … I loved it’ Julia Armfield, author of Private Rites and Our Wives Under The Sea
‘A gruesome, provocative, stylish fairytale.... A true Gothic gem’ Kaliane Bradley, bestselling author of The Ministry of Time
© Heather Parry 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Critics Review
-
Carrion Crow, surely, will win awards . . . Every sentence oozes a crushed purple poetry, overripe with devastation and wretchedness . . . If you finish it feeling you might just skip dinner, then you also feel filled with awe for a writer so gifted at conveying this much ick in such luxuriant, refulgent style.
Observer
-
Nods to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and, more obliquely, to the mythic grotesquerie of Angela Carter’s early fiction.
TLS
-
Carrion Crow may be set in a fetid late Victorian London and couched in lightly brocaded prose, but what lurks within is unmistakably red in tooth and claw, a creature nearer in kinship to Kathy Acker than to Sarah Waters . . richly fecund and adult in every sense of the word.
Guardian
-
Carrion Crow is a worthy entrant into the contemporary gothic hall of fame . . . I’m not sure the pure rancidness of this book will ever totally leave me.
Financial Times
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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Haunting and vivid, creating that palpable sense of isolation so hard to create. Parry's atmospheric storytelling leaps off the page.
Glamour
-
Probably one of the best books I've read this year! It felt like an unholy mix of Ottessa Moshfegh and Leonora Carrington, whilst still being very much its own thing. By turns grotesque and painfully tender, Carrion Crow is a masterful novel by a writer in complete control. Seldom have I read so compulsively or been so keen for a book not to end. It is a novel of achy compassion and consummate nastiness and I loved it.
Julia Armfield, author of Private Rites
-
Grizzly, compelling, and utterly claustrophobic.
Heather Darwent, author of The Things We Do To Our Friends
-
A surreal and abject little monster of a novel, artful in its exploration of women’s unspoken and unfulfilled ambitions, and the transformations they make to try and achieve them.
The Skinny
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If you’re on the lookout for a gothic masterpiece, look no further than Carrion Crow ... a thought-provoking and bold exploration of a toxic mother/daughter relationship set against a darkly gothic backdrop, which shines a light on societal constraints of the time and deals with the expectations laid at the feet of women.
nb Magazine
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A brilliantly claustrophobic tale of confinement . . . a cautionary tale of the societal pressures that have left so many women unfulfilled and overwhelmed.
Gutter Magazine
User Reviews
Book 4.0
Narration 5.0
-
4.0 5.0
Heather Parry never lets me down. Horror like this, where it's slow paced and claustrophobic can truly be hit or miss for a lot of people but I am so glad it worked for me. Especially if you have mummy issues 😅
I truly felt Marguerite's insanity grow as the book went on. It felt dizzying and a little like seeing a story through fog, due to Marguerite's life in the attic being so small with nothing to do other than read and sow, and her only company being the family of Carrion Crows whose nest was inside the roof.
I listened to this as an audiobook but I will need to have a copy of the physical book as well. This book, the same as Heather's other novel (Orpheus Builds A Girl) both have made home inside my soul and have made Heather a must-buy author for me.longingforliterature 2025-05-27
Details
- Author
- Heather Parry
- Narrator
- Olivia Vinall
- Duration
- 7 hours 2 minutes
- Release Date
- 27 February 2025
- ISBN
- 9781529955835
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Transworld
- Genre
- Horror, ghost stories and supernatural fiction, Historical fiction, Psychological thriller, Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction
- Rating
- 4.0(1 review)
- Narration
- 5.0(1 review)
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.A powerful and spine-tingling gothic tale exploring mother-daughter relationships, sexuality, and class.There are some facts about the world that only your mother can teach you.Marguerite had been confined for the sake of her wellbeing.That’s what her mother had said.Marguerite Périgord is locked in the attic of her family home, a towering Chelsea house overlooking the stinking Thames.For company she has a sewing machine, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and a carrion crow who has come to nest in the rafters. Restless, she spends her waning energies on the fascinations of her own body, memorising Mrs Beeton’s advice and longing for her life outside.Cécile Périgord has confined her daughter Marguerite for her own good.Cécile is concerned that Marguerite’s engagement to a much older, near-penniless solicitor, will drag the family name – her husband’s name, that is – into disrepute. And for Cécile, who has worked hard at her own betterment, this simply won’t do.Cécile’s life has taught her that no matter how high a woman climbs she can just as readily fall.Of course, both have their secrets, intentions and histories to hide. As Marguerite’s patience turns into rage, the boundaries of her mind and body start to fray.And neither woman can recognise what the other is becoming.‘Bold, blazing, absolutely unforgettable’ Elizabeth Macneal, bestselling author of The Doll Factory‘Probably one of the best books I've read this year! It felt like an unholy mix of Ottessa Moshfegh and Leonora Carrington, whilst still being very much its own thing … I loved it’ Julia Armfield, author of Private Rites and Our Wives Under The Sea‘A gruesome, provocative, stylish fairytale.... A true Gothic gem’ Kaliane Bradley, bestselling author of The Ministry of Time© Heather Parry 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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