‘Timeless and yet firmly rooted in time, magical and mysterious and yet earthy and sensual.’
Lily Dunn

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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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‘A beautiful book, written in lyrical, liquid prose that seems to flow straight from the heart to the page.’
Sophy Roberts

‘Few writers I know have this intense intimacy, or such an immediately engaging effect on a reader. It really is magic.’
Lucy Atkins

‘Clover’s most profound and moving, and unquestionably her most soaringly beautiful?’
Juliet Nicolson

Praise for Clover Stroud

‘A fearless explorer of the human heart.’
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

‘A travel book about wanting to stay put: a pilgrimage through a fabled English landscape ? Stroud’s best memoir yet, the most invigoratingly expansive, strikingly written. Moving ? Transformative.’ Daily Mail

‘Stroud writes gloriously? a deeply thoughtful exploration of the meaning of home and belonging’. – i News

‘The Giant on the Skyline is a potent reminder, as Stroud takes a step into the unknown, of the ways in which places become part of you.’ TLS

‘In the Giant on the Skyline, Stroud has produced something exceptional: a mystical meditation on what home means and what constitutes belonging ? It is magical and haunting and profoundly moving.’ Spectator

‘Assured, visceral, sexy as well as sensuous, richly coloured in every way.’ The Oldie

‘Raw, honest and poignant.’ Woman’s Own

‘One of the books we’re most looking forward to in 2024‘ – Good Housekeeping

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Would you give up your home for your partner’s career? What is it that makes your home a home? Can you make 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, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, understand the history of her landscape, and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go.

In this profound and moving memoir, Sunday Times bestselling author Clover Stroud paints a beautifully layered portrait of home, family, community and of belonging.

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‘I loved this?She writes with force, power, and a radical transparency. It’s a gift.’ – Cal Flynn

‘This incredibly special book will make you think of all the places and people you have ever called home.’ – Emma Gannon

‘I’m blown away by Clover’s writing. So impressive, inspiring, fluid, honest and resonant.’ – James Aldred

‘A beautiful book, written in lyrical, liquid prose that seems to flow straight from the heart to the page.’ – Sophy Roberts

‘Few writers I know have this intense intimacy, or such an immediately engaging effect on a reader. It really is magic.’ – Lucy Atkins

‘Clover’s most profound and moving, and unquestionably her most soaringly beautiful?’ – Juliet Nicolson

Praise for Clover Stroud

‘A fearless explorer of the human heart.’ – Elizabeth Gilbert

‘Stroud’s writing is knife-sharp, beautiful and profound.’ – Madeline Miller

‘Clover’s writing is sensationally beautiful.’ – Laura Cumming

‘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

‘With brutal, beautiful honesty, Clover articulates how bereavement shocks and dislocates – and in all the pain, there’s SO much life.’ MARIAN KEYES

‘MUST READ … A remarkable acount of love and grief.’ – DAILY MAIL

‘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
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‘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

‘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

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.

MORE PRAISE FOR CLOVER STROUD:
‘Clover’s expertise is writing about family life in a way that feels both new and entirely familiar’ – Pandora Sykes
‘As tender, blazing, funny and unflinching as the love it describes. I want to give this triumphant book to every mother I know’ – Rachel Joyce
‘Stroud is always willing to rip open her very soul in order to reveal the truth about her life – and every time a woman tells the truth like this, it sets another woman free’ – Elizabeth Gilbert
‘I read in one greedy gulp and am still slightly reeling. Extraordinary writing… For mothers and those even vaguely interested in family dynamics it is fascinating’ – Alexandra Heminsley

Charting 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.

‘So fierce and brave and visceral and raw – will stay with me forever. I loved it.’ ELIZABETH GILBERT

‘Full of heart, bravery and adventure.‘ AMY LIPTROT

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE

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.

‘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