The Long Delirious Burning Blue

The first novel by Sharon Blackie, author of If Women Rose Rooted.

‘You and me against the world, you used to sing. In the days before it became you and me against each other.’

A story of courage, endurance and redemption.

‘You and me against the world, you used to sing. In the days before it became you and me against each other.’

Cat Munro – who has never taken a day off in her working life – quits her corporate job and starts flying lessons in a small plane over the Arizona desert, confronting her fear not only of death, but of life. Her mother, Laura, moves back to the Scottish village where she spent the first years of her marriage to Cat’s abusive father. Though they are apart, the past connects mother and daughter, haunts them, binds them.

From the excoriating heat of the Arizona desert to the misty flow of a Highland sea-loch, Sharon Blackie’s soaring first novel presents us with the transformative power of landscape, and of storytelling, in women’s lives.

Above all, The Long Delirious Burning Blue is a story of courage, endurance and redemption.

‘It is that rarity, a first novel that smacks of not merely confidence, but authority … The ending is powerful, filmic, and achieving the kind of symmetry that novels often aspire to, but rarely reach.’

The Scotsman

 

‘Hugely potent … a tribute to the art of storytelling.

Independent on Sunday

 

‘With her blunt, gorgeous writing style and characters that seem to jump right off the page, Blackie has written a stunning, meaningful novel that will leave the reader forever changed by the time they reach the book’s beautifully crafted, inevitable ending. The Long Delirious Burning Blue is an absolute keeper.’

Booklist

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Read an extract.

Also available in ebook and audiobook.