Rachel Elliott

We’re delighted to be welcoming back Rachel Elliot to the bookshop, for the launch party of her novel Do Not Feed the Bear.

On her forty-seventh birthday, Sydney Smith stands on a rooftop and prepares to jump… Sydney is a cartoonist and freerunner. Feet constantly twitching, always teetering on the edge of life, she’s never come to terms with the event that ripped her family apart when she was ten years old. And so, on a birthday that she doesn’t want to celebrate, she returns alone to St Ives to face up to her guilt and grief. It’s a trip that turns out to be life-changing – and not only for herself. Do Not Feed the Bear is a book about lives not yet lived, about the kindness of others and about how, when our worlds stop, we find a way to keep on moving.

At once inspiring and also utterly charming, this is a wonderful tale by an equally wonderful, and local, author. Rachel Elliott will be interviewed by Nigel Wellings, author and psychotherapist.

“Rachel Elliott is such a beguiling and astute storyteller,” Sarah Winman.

“An astonishingly good novel about grief and its shadowy partner, guilt. Mysterious, uplifting, and often very funny, it had me totally gripped from start to finish.” Deborah Moggach.