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The Lamb
- Author
- Lucy Rose
- Narrator
- Emma Rydal
- Publisher
- Orion
- Publish Date
- 30 January 2025
- Run Time
- 7 hours 57 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Contemporary horror, ghost stories and supernatural fiction, Fiction: literary and general non-genre
- Rating
- 5.0 (1 review)
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What to expect
A gripping, sinister folktale set in contemporary Cumbria for fans of Sophie Mackintosh, Angela Carter, Daisy Johnson, Margaret Atwood and Julia Armfield
'A new generation of literary horror begins with Lucy Rose'
GENEVIEVE JAGGER
'Deliciously dark and shockingly bold. One of my favourite debuts in a long time'
KIRSTY LOGAN
'Superbly creepy . . . at heart it's about dysfunctional family dynamics, female rage and empowerment'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'An unforgettable, nightmarish tale. I ate it all up'
ANNA BOGUTSKAYA
A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn't at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.
But Mama's want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.
With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts - and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.
'Stunning, shocking and surprising at each turn'
BENJAMIN MYERS
'A modern Grimm fairytale'
SUSAN BARKER
'Dark, poetic, gothic, folky and full of courage and beauty'
TIM DOWNIE
'Dear reader, I predict you will be as obsessed as me'
MOLLY AITKEN
'Lucy Rose can certainly write . . . The Lamb grips all the way to an unexpected denouement'
GUARDIAN
Critics Review
-
Deliciously dark and shockingly bold - someone needs to make this into a film right now! Lucy Rose is one to watch. This is one of my favourite debuts in a long time
Kirsty Logan, author of NOW SHE IS WITCH
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Stunning, shocking and surprising at each turn - everything one would want from a novel, and so much more. Lucy Rose's fearful and fantastic imagination is a powerful weapon
Benjamin Myers, author of CUDDY
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Outstanding and disturbing and transformative. A new generation of literary horror begins with Lucy Rose. Brutal yet tender, The Lamb is a book that refuses to offer its reader the easy way out. A masterclass in suspense with an unflinching focus on intergenerational violence, The Lamb will leave you with a twisting feeling on the inside. Sensational. Read now, before everyone you know gets there first
Genevieve Jagger, author of FRAGILE ANIMALS
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Lucy Rose weaves together flesh, bones and mommy issues with unsettling deftness to create an unforgettable, nightmarish tale. I ate it all up
Anna Bogutskaya, author of FEEDING THE MONSTER
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This is the book I've been waiting for. Dark, twisted and utterly enthralling, The Lamb is a novel I will never forget. Lucy Rose's prose gave me chills, perfectly capturing the horrors and beauties of girlhood. Dear reader, I predict you will be as obsessed as me
Molly Aitken, author of BRIGHT I BURN
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Wild, evocative, and deeply felt, I was hooked on The Lamb from the first sentence. Reading Lucy Rose is like gently sliding your hand into the open mouth of a wolf - tender, terrifying, and exhilarating all at once
Sarah Rose Etter, author of RIPE
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A dark, fearsome novel that sticks between your teeth. Rose writes about daughterhood with poetic clarity and tenderness
Amy Twigg, author of SPOILT CREATURES
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The Lamb is one of the most horrifying, beautiful, and memorable things I've read. It's gorgeously written, deeply disturbing, and incredibly moving . . . I was so invested in this strange, dark, coming-of-age tale. Its landscape hums with a sense of threat, but is also shot through with an unsettling beauty. Read it, and see nature, family, and humanity through Margot's eyes for a while, and you'll come out of it changed
Sarah Brooks, author of THE CAUTIOUS TRAVELLER'S GUIDE TO THE WASTELANDS
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A modern Grimm fairytale. Heart-wrenching and sensuously lyrical, yet sinister, depraved and stomach-churningly good
Susan Barker, author of OLD SOUL
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Lucy Rose is extraordinary. I devoured The Lamb in one evening and I have not stopped thinking about it since. Poetic, visceral and wildly addictive, I dare you not to fall in love with Rose's imagination. Consume this book and prepare for it to consume you
Catherine Joy White, author of THIS THREAD OF GOLD
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Lyrical, poignant, unbearably tense, this is a dark folk horror that will linger long in the imagination. The observations of motherhood, girlhood, female friendships and rivalries, and the natural world are so beautifully wrought
Naomi Kelsey, author of THE BURNINGS
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The Lamb left me breathless. A beautiful, tender and disturbing novel, exploring mother-daughter relationships in a hugely ambitious and thought-provoking way. I loved it
Rachelle Atalla, author of THE SALT FLATS
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A dazzling and unique debut. The Lamb reeks of moss and blood - its visceral exploration of hunger, obsession, and depravity will cast a dark spell over you
Ally Wilkes, author of WHERE THE DEAD WAIT
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Visceral and aching, The Lamb is a magnetic, monstrous tale of womanhood and desire. I devoured it, hungry for each and every word. Margot is going to haunt me forever
Victoria Hawthorne, author of THE DARKEST NIGHT
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The Lamb will lure you in and devour you whole. Lucy Rose perfectly captures the toxic wilderness of motherhood and daughterhood in this poetic and electrifying debut
Rose Wilding, author of SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
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An extraordinary piece of work, dark, poetic, gothic, folky and full of courage and beauty. Incredible
Tim Downie
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Brilliantly raw and unflinching, The Lamb will lure you in and clutch hold of your heart. It's sweet, violent and unforgettable. Margot will steal your heart and linger long after the final page
Prano Bailey-Bond, writer/director of CENSOR
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The Lamb is a gorgeous, lyrical, evocative, hunger-inducing, and deeply moving novel that I just gobbled up, reading it totally compulsively right to the end
Nussaibah Younis, author of FUNDAMENTALLY
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A gruesome family fairytale, a twisted love story and a meditation on human decay. I ate up every fleshy page
Jodie Harsh author of YOU HAD TO BE THERE
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If you think you might be too squeamish for a book about cannibals, think again. Lucy Rose will lure you in with beautiful prose and captivate you with this story about finding voice and agency, and what it is (and isn't) to love and be loved
Kate Kemp, author of THE GRAPEVINE
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Lucy Rose is not afraid, and this bold, complex, shock of a novel proves that. Deliciously drawn, this feral folktale speaks to the sinister nature of the mother wound on a visceral level. Literary horror at its peak
Dawn Kurtagich, author of THE MADNESS
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A magnificent debut. Brutal yet tender, a dark fairytale pierced with light. Lucy Rose's writing is beautifully rendered, and her storytelling skills navigate the deepest intricacies of mother daughter relationships with an elegant hand that drips blood. The Lamb is a game-changer in the horror genre, and I will be thinking about it for a very long time
Emma Cowing, author of THE SHOW WOMAN
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The Lamb . . . is not out until January but it has already created a buzz
Sunday Times
-
Lucy Rose can certainly write . . . The Lamb grips all the way to an unexpected denouement that is as comfortless as it is eerie
Guardian
-
The Lamb is a hard tale to shake
Observer
-
A superbly creepy folk-horror tale . . . at heart it's about dysfunctional family dynamics, female rage and empowerment
Financial Times
-
The Lamb is written in terse and pared back language then it bubbles like a simmering stove towards a memorable and nightmarish conclusion
Irish Examiner
-
A nightmare fable . . . A troubling fever dream of a book that nevertheless compels you to follow it into the shadows
Herald
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What makes this twist on Hansel and Gretel particularly unsettling is the twilight world it occupies between the "safe" remove of folk tale and the clinical glare of realism . . . This dark, gorgeous concoction is layered with insights into the insidious perpetuation of family violence
New York Times
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Beautiful, terrifying . . . Rose's novel feels destined to become a classic . . . it reminded me of The Juniper Tree, one of the most enduring and powerful of folktales, with its message of retribution and renewal
Washington Post
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A gleefully gruesome tale . . . Femgore at its finest
People Magazine
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Grimms' Fairy Tales meets Mommie Dearest in a twisted debut novel about the complex hungers of mothers and daughters . . . The rich, almost unguent prose carries the story through its gruesome developments without, surprisingly, being gratuitous, as it digs deep into the viscera of the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters, lovers, and one's own physical and emotional hungers. A gruesome yet illuminating coming-of-age story that will keep readers awake night after night
Kirkus Reviews
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A potent and grotesque tale . . . A portrait of the dark side of feminine rage. This modern folktale hits hard
Publishers Weekly
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A strange and bold debut from an exciting new voice
The Skinny
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A brutal meditation on motherhood, feminine rage, and what it takes to survive. It's equal parts scathing and sentimental
Booklist
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This is the genius of Rose's folktale: she blurs the lines between hunger and gluttony, human and animal, love and revulsion. It's hypnotic, grotesque and beautiful all at once
Bookpage
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Like characters from a modern-day Grimms' fairytale, mother and daughter Ruth and Margot lure unwary travellers to their remote woodland cottage in order to slaughter and eat them. That's until a stranger, Eden, upsets their anthropophagous paradise. Rose impresses with a feminist folkhorror fable as chilling as it is understated
Financial Times, Best Summer Books of 2025
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Impossible to put down . . . Drips with haunting imagery and fleshed-out characters
Cosmopoltian, Best Debut of 2025
User Reviews
Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
- No written reviews yet.
Details
- Author
- Lucy Rose
- Narrator
- Emma Rydal
- Duration
- 7 hours 57 minutes
- Release Date
- 30 January 2025
- ISBN
- 9781399619745
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Orion
- Genre
- Contemporary horror, ghost stories and supernatural fiction, Fiction: literary and general non-genre
- Rating
- 5.0(1 review)
- Narration
- 5.0(1 review)
Synopsis
THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A gripping, sinister folktale set in contemporary Cumbria for fans of Sophie Mackintosh, Angela Carter, Daisy Johnson, Margaret Atwood and Julia Armfield 'A new generation of literary horror begins with Lucy Rose'GENEVIEVE JAGGER'Deliciously dark and shockingly bold. One of my favourite debuts in a long time'KIRSTY LOGAN'Superbly creepy . . . at heart it's about dysfunctional family dynamics, female rage and empowerment'FINANCIAL TIMES'An unforgettable, nightmarish tale. I ate it all up' ANNA BOGUTSKAYA A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT. Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn't at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.But Mama's want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts - and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.'Stunning, shocking and surprising at each turn'BENJAMIN MYERS'A modern Grimm fairytale'SUSAN BARKER'Dark, poetic, gothic, folky and full of courage and beauty'TIM DOWNIE'Dear reader, I predict you will be as obsessed as me' MOLLY AITKEN'Lucy Rose can certainly write . . . The Lamb grips all the way to an unexpected denouement' GUARDIAN
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