From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell , an enchanting and haunting Christmas short story Named a book to look out for in 2024 by the Sunday Times , Guardian and BBC A small hardback edition featuring an afterword by the author ''A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They''re the same thing really.'' Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees - and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst - and the path of her life is changed forever. ''Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke has made the very notion of genre seem quaint'' Guardian ''A miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling'' Madeline Miller With exquisite illustrations by Victoria Sawdon

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Susanna Clarke's debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was first published in more than 34 countries and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. It won British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a collection of short stories, some set in the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was published by Bloomsbury in 2006. Piranesi was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Susanna Clarke lives in Derbyshire.