Join us for the Manchester launch of Heather Parry’s incredible debut novel ORPHEUS BUILDS A GIRL – a deliriously dark tale of sisterly love and sinister obsession. Heather will be in conversation with Lara Williams.

About the book:

“I rest easy; I could not have done a thing more for my beloved, nor could I have shown my love in any greater way”

Wilhelm von Tore is dying. As he looks back on his life he reflects on his upbringing in Dresden, his beloved Grandmother and his medical career during the second world war. But mostly he remembers his darling Luci, the great love of his life, his dark-haired beauty promised to him in a dream, years before they met.

Though only together for a few months in her first life, their love is written in the stars. Using scientific research compiled over decades, Wilhelm von Tore ensures that, for him and his beloved, death is only the beginning.

But through the cracks in Wilhem’s story there is another voice, that of Gabriela, and she will not let this version of events go unchallenged. She tells the story of her sister Luciana, fearless and full of life, and the madman who robbed her from her grave.

Based on a chilling true story, Orpheus Builds a Girl is the debut novel from award-winning author Heather Parry.

About the author:

Heather Parry is an established writer whose credits include The Stinging Fly, Gutter, Mslexia and The Ogilivie. She won the 2016 Bridge Award for an Emerging Writer, and Cove Park’s 2017 Emerging Writer residency. In 2021 she was a Hawthornden Fellow. Her work has also been performed at The Edinburgh International Book Festival. She lives in Glasgow, and chairs literary events in Edinburgh and throughout Scotland. Heather Parry is the founder of the literary magazine Extra Teeth.

Lara Williams is the author of Treats and Supper Club. Treats was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Edinburgh First Book Award and the Saboteur Awards and longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, and Supper Club won the Guardian ‘Not the Booker’ Prize, was named as a Book of the Year 2019 by TIME and Vogue, and has been translated into six languages. Lara Williams lives in Manchester and is a contributor to the Guardian, Independent, Times Literary Supplement, Vice, Dazed and others. In 2021 she was longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. Her latest novel The Odyssey was published in April.

Doors: 6.30, starts: 6.45

Tickets are £3.00 or free when pre-ordering a copy of the book. ORPHEUS BUILDS A GIRL will also be available to purchase on the night and Heather will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and we can arrange this for you.