Photo Credit: Joern Harris
Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann is delighted to share news of the sale of Sandra Leigh Price’s debut novel, A TABERNACLE FOR THE BIRDS, to HarperCollins Australia, in a two-book deal for ANZ rights.
It is 1929 when three people find themselves washed up on the steps of Miss Du Maurier’s bohemian boarding house in Sydney.
Ari is a young Jewish man, a pogrom orphan who lives under the stern rule of his rabbi uncle, while dreaming his father is Houdini. Upon his hand he bears the forbidden mark – a tattoo – and has a secret ambition to be a magician. He finds an injured parrot and is unsure of how to care for it, until he meets Lily, a girl after his own abracadabra heart. But the wild card in the pack is Billy, who harbours secrets desires of his own…
Catherine Milne, Publisher of Fourth Estate, says ‘I am thrilled to be publishing this book. This is a stunningly original novel which has something of the gorgeous, embroidered whimsy of The Night Circus and the ornate narrative voice of Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale; imagine, if you will, a novel with the heart of Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda, but told through a dark Tim Burton-esque lens. This is genuinely exciting writing.’
Sandra Leigh Price lives in Sydney. She graduated from the Australian National University, Canberra, with a Double Major in English Literature and Drama, and co-established a small theatre company before moving to Sydney to pursue a career as an actor, then turning to writing.
A Tabernacle for the Birds will be published by Fourth Estate in April 2015. Please see HarperCollins Australia Press Release for more details.
