The Red of my Blood

From the journalist and critically acclaimed author of My Wild and Sleepless Nights comes a raw and penetrating memoir about surviving the loss of her sister and about embracing death as an essential, and enriching, part of life.

Like a magician, Clover puts her grief into a hat and pulls out '70,000 perfect words to describe what it is like when language fails you ... Courageous and utterly compelling, this is a book that will wring you out, wear you down and leave you filled with wonder.' - The Oldie

One of 'Ten Books to read in 2022' - Independent

'An absolute gutting masterpiece of a book.' LISA TADDEO, author of THREE WOMEN

'Clover Stroud is a fearless explorer of the human heart, and a writer of incomparable grace and passion. She also understands more about loss, sorrow, grief, and resilience than most people will ever have to learn.' ELIZABETH GILBERT, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE

'So beautiful, compelling and raw. Clover records the shifting, glittering rainbow of her experience of love and death with extraordinary honesty and precision.' GAVANNDRA HODGE, author of THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE

'The most beautiful, enduring, indelible, transcendent love letter from a sister to a sister that I will ever read.' JULIET NICOLSON, author of FROSTQUAKE

'Can death bring something good to my life?'

A few weeks before Christmas, Clover's sister died of breast cancer, aged forty-six. Just days before, she had been given years to live. Her sudden death split Clover's life apart. The Red of My Blood charts Clover's fearless passage through the first year after her sister's death.

It is a book about what life feels like when death interrupts it, and about bearing the unbearable and describing an experience that seems beyond words. Lyrical, hopeful, it is also about the magical way in which death and life exist so vividly beside one another, and the wonder of being human.

'A beautiful addition to the literature of loss. It will serve as a lit match, to be passed from one person to the next in the darkest moments.' THE SUNDAY TIMES