The Long Delirious Burning Blue

THE FIRST NOVEL BY THE AUTHOR
OF WORD-OF-MOUTH BESTSELLER 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.’

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

Dr Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer, psychologist and mythologist. Her highly acclaimed books, lectures and workshops are focused on the development of the mythic imagination, and on the relevance of myths, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, cultural and environmental problems we face today. As well as writing five books of fiction and non-fiction, including the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted and her latest, Hagitude, her writing has appeared in anthologies, collections and in several international media outlets - among them the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Scotsman. Her books have been translated into several languages, and she has been interviewed by the BBC, US public radio and other broadcasters on her areas of expertise. Sharon is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has taught and lectured at several academic institutions, Jungian organisations, retreat centres and cultural festivals around the world.