Phoebe Stuckes and Rose Ruane – Book Launch

We are delighted to launch Birding by Rose Ruane and Dead Animals by Phoebe Stuckes

18.30, Friday 10 May, in the Clifton Arcade

Heron Books is thrilled to host Phoebe Stuckes and Rose Ruane to celebrate their debut novels. We are huge fans of their writing – we’ve been lucky enough to read advance copies of their brilliant books – and can’t wait to hear from the authors themselves.
Phoebe and Rose will be in conversation with Ash Bond, author of Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm.

Dead Animals by Phoebe Stuckes

There is something creeping at the edge of your vision, lingering somewhere just out of focus. All it would take is to let your mind wander, to let it come into view. A young woman wakes after a house party with scratches and bruises – and a gap in her memory.

As the violent truth comes back to her – a series of events she struggles to name – her anger grows. Solace comes in the form of enigmatic, captivating Helene, who knows what the man at the party did, has suffered at his hands too. An act of violence demands one in return and Helene is planning revenge.

But who can afford to ask for justice, when the cost is murderously high?

Birding by Rose Ruane

In a small seaside town, autumn is edging into winter, gulls ride winds over the waves, and two women pass each other on the promenade, as yet unaware of each other’s existence. In the nineties Lydia was a teen pop star, posed half naked on billboards everywhere with a lollipop between her lips and no idea how to live, letting the world happen to her. Now, three decades later, Lydia is less and less sure that what happened to her was in the least bit okay. The news cycle runs hot with #MeToo stories, and a famous former lover has emerged with a self-serving apology, asking her to forgive him. Suddenly, the past is full of trapdoors she is desperately trying not to fall through.

Joyce, in middle age, has never left home.She still lives with her mother Betty. With their matching dresses, identical hairdos and makeup, they are the local oddballs. Theirs is a life of unerring routine: the shops, biscuits served on bone china plates, dressing up for a gin and tonic on Saturday. Nice things. One misstep from Joyce can ruin Betty’s day; so Joyce treads carefully. She has never let herself think about a different kind of life.

With mordant wit and lyrical prose, Birding asks if we can ever see ourselves clearly or if we are always the unreliable narrators of our own experiences. It is a story about the difference between responsibility and obligation, unhealthy relationships and abusive ones, third acts and last chances, and two women trying to take flight on clipped wings.

Tickets include a glass of wine on arrival. Tickets are £5 or free with the purchase of Birding and/or Dead Animals.
Tickets are fully redeemable against buying the books on the night.
Book orders will be available to collect and get signed on the night.