Clover Stroud

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE ' This story - so fierce and brave and visceral and raw - will stay with me forever. Clover Stroud is a force of nature, and a woman who is fearless in the face of life and death. I loved it.' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of E at Pray Love ' An astonishing book about loss, love, darkness, pain, sex and adventure. I adore it.' Dolly Alderton ' There is so much richly evoked life here... beautifully written.' Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Times 'This redemptive memoir will steal your heart; it will return it bruised but emboldened.' Mail on Sunday ' I have huge admiration for the spirit of this memoir, and its full of heart, bravery and adventure. A moving, gripping read.' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun Clover Stroud grew up in rural Wiltshire surrounded by animals and family. When she was just sixteen her adored mother had a horrific riding accident which left her permanently brain-damaged, and suddenly Clover was left to fend for herself. She embarked on an extraordinary journey to heal her broken heart, courting men and danger through two marriages and five children. The Wild Other is a grippingly honest account of love, sex and travelling to the darkest edges of human experience and back again. Powerful and deeply emotional, this is the story of an extraordinary life lived at its fullest.

'The best evocation of the all-consuming, self-eroding reality of motherhood, while also being luminous with love.' - Sunday Times Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. In her touching, provocative and profoundly insightful book, she captures a sense of what motherhood really feels like – how intense, sensuous, joyful, boring, profound and dark it can be.My Wild and Sleepless Nights examines what it means to be a mother, and reveals with unflinching honesty the many conflicting emotions that this entails: the joy and the wonder, the loneliness and despair. PRAISE FOR CLOVER STROUD: 'Generous, tender, resonant' Sophie Dahl'A wonderful book' Julie Myerson'Bravo brave Clover Stroud' Amy Liptrot'A masterpiece' Esther Coren'Visceral and brilliant' India Knight'Joyous and exhilarating' Cathy Rentzenbrink'This book is fantastic' Polly Samson'A remarkable woman, and an incredible writer' Bryony Gordon'Every time a woman tells the truth like this, it sets another woman free' Elizabeth GilbertCharting the course of one year, the first in her youngest child’s life, Clover searches for answers to questions that many of us would be too afraid to admit to – not only about motherhood, but also about female sexuality and identity. Her story will speak to all mothers, and anyone about to embark on that journey.

AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'She is a vigorous and fearless writer, grabbing us by the throat to describe life's horrors and her responses to them, filling her pages with the magnetic force of her own life as wife, lover and mother of five which somehow has to go on.' SPECTATOR'With brutal, beautiful honesty, Clover articulates how bereavement shocks and dislocates - and in all the pain, there's SO much life.' MARIAN KEYES...............................................'Can death bring something good to my life?'A few weeks before Christmas, Clover's sister died of breast cancer, aged forty-six. Just days before, she had been given years to live. Her sudden death split Clover's life apart. The Red of My Blood charts Clover's fearless passage through the first year after her sister's death. It is a book about what life feels like when death interrupts it, and about bearing the unbearable and describing an experience that seems beyond words. Lyrical, hopeful, it is also about the magical way in which death and life exist so vividly beside one another, and the wonder of being human.'A beautiful addition to the literature of loss. It will serve as a lit match, to be passed from one person to the next in the darkest moments.' THE SUNDAY TIMES

'Clover Stroud is a fearless explorer of the human heart, and a writer of incomparable grace and passion.' Elizabeth Gilbert'Clover's writing is sensationally beautiful.' Laura Cumming'Stroud's writing is knife-sharp, beautiful and profound.' Madeline Miller'I love Clover Stroud's writing. It feels like she's mining for treasure, drilling down with lyrical prose, getting to the thing that makes us human.' Christie Watson........................................................................................................................................................................................................What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a family is split?Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America. The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC. Forced to leave the home she loves and consider these questions, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, walk the Ridgway, understand a little of the history of her landscape and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go. In doing so she paints a beautifully layered portrait of family, community and of belonging in a landscape that has drawn people to it for generation after generation.

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Brought to you by Penguin.What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a family is split? Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America. The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC. Forced to leave the home she loves and consider these questions, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, walk the Ridgway, understand a little of the history of her landscape and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go. In doing so she paints a beautifully layered portrait of family, community and of belonging in a landscape that has drawn people to it for generation after generation.