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.
Lucy Rose is a writer and filmmaker with an interest in the gothic, girlhood and horror. Her short fiction and personal essays have been published in Dread Central, Mslexia, Ghouls on Film and more. She’s proud to be a Curtis Brown Creative Breakthrough alumni writer and one of Mslexia’s featured columnists and fiction writers. In early 2023, she was awarded Arts Council DYCP funding for literary development. She currently lives in Newcastle.
