winner of the Desmond Elliott prize 2010
shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award 2009
longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2009
longlisted for the Dylan Thomas prize 2010
Ida Maclaird is turning into glass. Frightened and in search of answers, she returns to the place where the metamorphosis began: a snowbound archipelago far from the mainland where she lives. There she meets Midas Crook, a self-confessed coward and awkward loner, who agonises his way into her heart.
Together they seek out the elusive Henry Fuwa, a man who seems to understand what lies behind the island’s extraordinary phenomena. Midas barely realises he is falling in love with Ida, until time and history cruelly conspire against him. Love must be paid in precious hours and, as the glass encroaches, hours are something Ida finds herself without.
An endearing and richly visual novel that will appeal to readers of Murikami and Garcia-Marquez, THE GIRL WITH GLASS FEET is a heartbreaking story of two young lovers grappling with the ordinary in the most extraordinary circumstances.
‘Shaw has worked the great tradition of European fairy tales and come up with an ingenious story… A magical fable of fate and resignation.’ (Guardian)
Ali Shaw was born in 1982 and grew up in a small town in Dorset. He graduated from Lancaster University with a first class degree in English Literature and has worked as a bookseller in London and Oxford.