[]
The Bloody Branch
  • Published: 28 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787305267
  • Imprint: Harvill Secker
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $38.00
Categories:

The Bloody Branch

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
28 Jan 2026
EBook
29 Jan 2026
Audiobook
29 Jan 2026
Hardback
28 Feb 2026
Buy from…
The Nile Mighty Ape BookHub Whitcoulls The Warehouse Paper Plus Fishpond Book Hero Unity Books University Book Shop Find Local Retailers

Three powerful heroines – a queen, a sorceress and woman made of flowers – plot revenge against the villain who wronged them. A gorgeously dark debut novel inspired by Celtic Britain’s first fantasy fiction.

Three powerful heroines – a queen, a sorceress and woman made of flowers – plot revenge against the villain who wronged them. A gorgeously dark debut novel inspired by Celtic Britain’s original fantasy fiction.

Man is cruel but the flowers will take their revenge.

Three great heroines – slave queen Goewin, the reclusive sorceress Arianrhod, and Blodeuwedd, a woman conjured from flowers – unite to avenge themselves on the most dangerous man in ancient legend.

Gwydion is a powerful sorcerer, whose ambition and cruelty wreak havoc across the kingdom. When at last the earth itself is put at stake, Goewin, Arianrhod and Blodeuwedd each unleash their uncanny powers to challenge him.

In this vital and visceral novel, Brigid Lowe casts ancient light on desire, sex and our relationship with nature to bring these Celtic heroines to explosive, sensuous, blossoming new life.
  • Published: 28 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787305267
  • Imprint: Harvill Secker
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $38.00
Categories:

About the author

Brigid Lowe

Brigid Lowe grew up in a remote Welsh-speaking community on Ynys Môn, with her younger sister and Irish immigrant parents. She now lives with her children in that part of Scotland known as Yr Hen Ogledd – The Old North – formerly joined with Wales in one Cumbric nation. She studied literature at Bangor, completed a doctorate at Oxford, and went on to teach and research at Sheffield and Cambridge Universities, publishing a book and many essays on the art of fiction. Brigid traces her descent from travellers, circus performers, mill workers and gallowglass warriors. She takes photographs of flowers, forages her food, clambers pinnacles, and swims in ice and caves and bottomless pools.

portrait photo of Brigid Lowe

Praise for The Bloody Branch

Brigid’s book is a masterpiece of poetic reimagining, woven into an intricate, otherworldly, complex and dramatic novel that held me spellbound.

Barbara Erskine, Sunday Times Bestselling Author

A rich, visceral fever dream unafraid to take you to the darkest corners of myth and magic... always powerful, the story is conveyed in language that branches, metamorphoses, and invites you to follow it into the mists of medieval myth.

Lucy Holland, author of SISTERSONG

I adored everything about The Bloody Branch. I revelled in the absolutely exquisite prose - pure poetry - and its intensely atmospheric world shimmering with folklore and magic. I reread lines multiple times, shocked at their beauty. Shifting between violence and tenderness, protest and surrender, this haunting, sensual debut had me holding my breath, firmly under its spell.

Emma van Straaten

A magnificent folkloric retelling rich with passion and relevance for our modern world. Every single page captured me, heart and soul, as I bore witness to female solidarity & strength, mankind's destruction and violence and the endurance and power of nature... Lowe interweaves folklore, history and magic through lush prose and compelling storytelling. Her powers of description are breathtaking.... Stunning!

Anya Bergman, author of THE WITCHES OF VARDO

An astonishing feat of reimagined myth - lush, wild and evocative. Dripping in beauty and brutality, The Bloody Branch is spellbinding from the first page.

Emily Cooper, author of SEASON OF FEAR