THE NIGHT HERON

Haunting novel of grief and discovery, suffused with the beauty of nature

The year is 2003 and Lucas is sorting out his late father's remote East Anglian cottage after the funeral — seeking order, the will and some sense of closure and clarity about their relationship. Daniel was an acclaimed novelist, but a distant, changeable man, and Lucas, now a commercial writer, has always craved yet struggled to gain his attention. Now he is plagued by the idea that his girlfriend Stella aided Daniel's death, but tries to focus on reclaiming the marshland of his childhood. He thinks back to the pivotal summer he spent there in 1972, when he was twelve and realised his parents' marriage was crumbling. It was also the summer he found an ancient sword in the marshes and first met mercurial local teenager Sam Fisk, whose fisherman father was lost at sea in a storm.

It is the adult Lucas, however, who must come of age. Given his fragile bond with Daniel, Lucas is surprised by powerful grief and wanders the marsh at night, his increasing self-absorption alienating both his mother and Stella. And then there is the brooding presence of Sam Fisk, an angry man spoiling for a fight.
The past lives with us, Lucas finds, as he confronts surprising truths and find new depths in himself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eleanor Bird lives in the rural Welsh Borders. She studied history at Oxford University and then took a postgraduate diploma in the history of art. She has worked for the National Trust, and as a freelance writer and copy editor. She also teaches community classes in art history. THE NIGHT HERON is her debut novel and
she is working on her second.