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From an incendiary new talent, a contemporary queer folktale about a mother and daughter living in the woods, for fans of Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, and Julia Armfield.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember.
When Margot is not at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. People who have strayed too far from the road. 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 beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her bid for freedom.
With this gothic 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.
"Grimms' Fairy Tales meets Mommie Dearest in a twisted debut novel about the complex hungers of mothers and daughters ... A gruesome yet illuminating coming-of-age story that will keep readers awake night after night." —Kirkus Reviews
"[P]otent and grotesque ... This modern folktale hits hard." —Publishers Weekly
"A brutal meditation on motherhood, feminine rage, and what it takes to survive. It's equal parts scathing and sentimental, and fans of Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch and Kristi DeMeester's Such a Pretty Smile will be perversely delighted by Margot's bloody coming of age." —Booklist
"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 I am." —Molly Aitken, author of Bright I Burn
"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 and Things We Say in the Dark
"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
This information about The Lamb was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lucy Rose's fiction and non-fiction have been published by Dread Central, Mslexia, and more, and her films have visited BAFTA- and Oscar-qualifying film festivals internationally. Lucy's debut novel, The Lamb, is being published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK and HarperCollins in the US. Lucy lives on the northeast coast of England with her black cat, Figgy, and is currently working on her next story.
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