Heather Parry

We are so excited to welcome Heather Parry to the bookshop on Halloween to celebrate her novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession, and the battle for control of the story.

German doctor Wilhelm Von Tore shares with the reader the story of his one true love; a love written in the stars, decades in the making, a love so strong it transcended death itself. When Wilhelm emigrates to America he carries with him a vision of a dark-haired beauty, presented to him in his dreams by his beloved late Grandmother. In Key West, Florida, a beautiful young woman is taken to him in the grip of illness, and he recognises her immediately as his promised bride. Despite his efforts, the sickness takes hold and his beloved slips away from him. But Wilhelm will not be kept from his destiny, not even by death. Using research compiled over decades, he sets about attempting to restore his love to her body, so that they might be together forever. But there’s another voice in this story: Gabriela, and she will not let this version of events go unchallenged. From between the cracks in Wilhelm’s story Gabriela recounts her own memory of her sister Luciana, a fiery and difficult young woman, and the madman who robbed her from her grave.

Heather is an established writer whose credits include The Stinging Fly, Gutter, Mslexia and The Ogilivie. She won the 2016 Bridge Award for an Emerging Writer, and Cove Park’s 2017 Emerging Writer residency. In 2021 she was a Hawthornden Fellow. Her work has also been performed at The Edinburgh International Book Festival. She lives in Glasgow, and chairs literary events in Edinburgh and throughout Scotland. Heather is the founder of the literary magazine Extra Teeth.

We cannot wait to hear Heather discuss her chilling debut novel so we hope to see you there! Complimentary wine and fizzy water will be on offer as well.