Ali Shaw

A compulsive, mesmerising and wildly imaginative novel in the vein of Pan's Labyrinth and Station Eleven from the award-winning author of The Girl with Glass Feet There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins...There is no warning. No chance to prepare. The trees arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest. Adrien Thomas has never been much of a hero. But when he realises that no help is coming, he ventures into this unrecognisable world. Alongside green-fingered Hannah and her teenage son Seb, Adrien sets out to find his wife and to discover just how deep the forest goes. Their journey will take them to a place of terrible beauty and violence, to the dark heart of nature and the darkness inside themselves

A novel to fall in love with - for anyone who loved the escapism of "The Time Traveller's Wife" and "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" A mysterious metamorphosis has taken hold of Ida MacLaird - she is slowly turning into glass Fragile and determined to find a cure, she returns to the strange, enchanted island where she believes the transformation began, in search of reclusive Henry Fuwa, the one man who might just be able to help ...

From the Costa Prize shortlisted-author of The Girl with Glass Feet comes another magical novel of love, discovery and nature.The Man Who Rained is a work of lyrical, mercurial magic and imagination, a modern-day fable about the elements of love.When Elsas father is killed in a tornado, all she wants is to escape - from New York, her job, her boyfriend - to somewhere new, anonymous, set apart.For some years she has been haunted by a sight once seen from an aeroplane: a tiny, isolated settlement called Thunderstown. Thunderstown has received many a pilgrim, and young Elsa becomes its latest - drawn to this weather-ravaged backwater, this place rendered otherworldly by the superstitions of its denizens.In Thunderstown, they say, the weather can come to life and when Elsa meets Finn Munro, an outcast living in the mountains above the town, she wonders whether she has witnessed just that. For Finn has an incredible secret: he has a thunderstorm inside of him. Not everyone in town wants happiness for Elsa and Finn. As events turn against them, can they weather the tempest - can they survive at all?

Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize (2010)Shortlisted for the Costa Book Award Nominee for First Novel (2009)Longlisted for Guardian First Book Award (2009)Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize (2010)Shortlisted Tahtifantasia Award Nominee (2012)A mysterious metamorphosis has taken hold of Ida MacLaird - she is slowly turning into glass. Fragile and determined to find a cure, she returns to the strange, enchanted island where she believes the transformation began, in search of reclusive Henry Fuwa, the one man who might just be able to help... Instead she meets Midas Crook, and another transformation begins: as Midas helps Ida come to terms with her condition, they fall in love. What they need most is time - and time is slipping away fast.

There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins...There is no warning. No chance to prepare. They arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest. Buildings are destroyed. Broken bodies, still wrapped in tattered bed linen, hang among the twitching leaves. Adrien Thomas has never been much of a hero. But when he realises that no help is coming, he ventures out into this unrecognisable world. Michelle, his wife, is across the sea in Ireland and he has no way of knowing whether the trees have come for her too. Then Adrien meets green-fingered Hannah and her teenage son Seb. Together, they set out to find Hannah's forester brother, to reunite Adrien with his wife - and to discover just how deep the forest goes. Their journey will take them to a place of terrible beauty and violence, to the dark heart of nature and the darkness inside themselves.

Strange things are happening on the remote and snowbound archipelago of St Hauda's Land. Unusual winged creatures flit around icy bogland; albino animals hide themselves in the snow-glazed woods; jellyfish glow in the ocean's depths...And Ida MacLaird is slowly turning into glass. A mysterious and frightening alchemical metamorphosis has befallen Ida Maclaird - she is slowly turning into glass, from the feet up. She returns to St Hauda's Land, where she believes the glass first took hold, in search of a cure. Midas Crook is a young loner, who has lived on the islands his entire life. When he meets Ida, something about her sad, defiant spirit pierces his emotional defenses. As Midas helps Ida come to terms with her affliction, she gradually unpicks the knots of his heart, and they begin to fall in love...What they need most is time - and time is slipping away fast. Will they find a way to stave off the spread of the glass? "The Girl with Glass Feet" is a dazzlingly imaginative and gripping first novel, a love story to treasure.

Con esta fábula sobre el amor, bella, singular y exquisitamente triste, el escritor británico Ali Shaw ha visto cómo su primera novela se convertía en un hallazgo literario. La chica con pies de cristal ha recibido excelentes criticas en Inglaterra y Estados Unidos, ha obtenido el Premio Desmond Elliot y ha sido finalista del Premio Costa de Primera Novela y del Premio Crawford, ademas de traducirse a catorce idiomas.Extraños sucesos ocurren en el remoto archipielago de Saint Hauda. Criaturas de una rara belleza sobrevuelan la marisma helada y animales albinos encuentran refugio en los bosques, mientras las medusas iluminan con destellos electricos el oscuro fondo del mar.Tras unas breves vacaciones en una de las islas, la joven Ida Maclaird descubre que sus pies se estan volviendo de cristal. Alarmada, Ida regresa a Saint Hauda en busca de una explicacion a este fenomeno. Alli se encuentra con Midas Crook, un fotografo timido y solitario, con quien vivira una historia de amor tan hermosa como urgente, pues la metamorfosis de Ida avanza inexorable. Sin embargo, la apasionada determinacion de la joven choca con la aparente parsimonia de la vida en Saint Hauda, donde cada personaje parece esconder oscuros secretos, relacionados entre si como nudos de una complicada madeja.Inspirado por los celebres relatos de Hans Christian Andersen, marcados por la perdida y el sentido de la fatalidad, Ali Shaw ha escrito un libro rebosante de imaginacion que sumerge al lector en un mundo fascinante donde realidad y fantasia se conjugan en una historia inolvidable.Combinando realismo magico y las convenciones de la novela romantica [...], esta encantadora primera novela inaugura un nuevo tipo de fabula. Booklist