“Gill stretched out a hand and ran it over the top of the wilting bullrushes. Soon it would be dark. She would go to sleep and when she woke up, she would be seven. A whole year added on overnight. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and squeezed, wondering what the world would look like in the morning.
A movement caught her eye. It was a flutter of wings catching the light, emerging from the reeds right next to her hand. She bent and saw a slender creature, about the length of her finger, rise into the air. Arching and twisting. Two long tails dangled behind it like ribbons. There was another and another.
She lifted her arm into the air and followed their path with her finger.”
The Blue Poppy
Kitty Edwards grew up in Manchester, the daughter of a botanist and a South African Indian immigrant. Her work won the Owned Voices Novel Award in 2021 and was long-listed for the Bridport Prize in 2019. She studied law at Oxford and practised in London for twelve years.
She is working on her debut, a book club novel about the search for a flower that can cure mental illness.