AN INSTANT BESTSELLER ON PUBLICATION IN AUSTRALIA Thank you homegrown booksellers and readers!
The World
Beneath
Her Feet
Do you remember your first great love?
My new, third novel is about belonging, memory, time, first loves, and what it takes to come home to ourselves and each other.
Out now in Australia + New Zealand
US + Canada: 9 March 2027
UK news coming soon
Dear reader,
meet Maggie Byrd…
It was extraordinary, Maggie would think decades later, whenever she recalled the November day that changed everything: despite her work with unearthed time – despite her knowing how time changes matter – she’d still spent years avoiding two truths that had shaped the bedrock of her own life.
In every moment you live is every moment you’ve ever lived.
And you’ll never love anyone again the way you do when you’re sixteen.
In her late thirties, Maggie Byrd lives a charmed life in London. She works with fossils and gems at the Natural History Museum and shares a home with the two people she loves most: her best friend, Harriet, and her partner, Joe. However, beneath this façade lies a past Maggie buried deep inside herself and resolved never to unearth: the story of a guilt-ridden, heartbroken girl who left Australia in her early twenties and swore never to return. But when she learns that she's inherited her beloved uncle's rewilded land in a lush valley of southeast Queensland, Maggie's London life begins to fracture.
On the edge of a town made famous by opalised fossil discoveries and a volcanic lake rumoured to be cursed, the land is home to an abundance of native flora and fauna, and a sacred, ephemeral tea-tree swamp. In the nineties, this wild, vivid place shaped Maggie when she was an angry, lost teenager. It was her sanctuary, where she experienced the intoxicating powers and limitations of friendship, first love, desire and loyalty – until she betrayed everyone she loved there and fled.
When the same land that Maggie turned her back on comes into her care, she is forced to face what we all cannot bury, abandon or forget.
Kind words:
The World Beneath Her Feet
“This deeply layered story is like the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast, revealing and releasing long-buried treasures after each storm. An opalescent wonder of a book which returns you to the ache of first love and broken friendships and the value of courageously closing those loops. And Maggie Byrd is a character to love with all your heart.”
“Full of yearning, and beauty, and all the layers of our lives we try to suppress, it really, really moved me.”
“There’s something so distinctive about Holly’s writing: that signature combination of magic, tenderness, wonder and a deep love of the natural world. ”
“A gem of a love story.”
“Get ready for a reluctant homecoming story that will completely break and then mysteriously heal your heart. Unforgettable. ”
“One of Australia’s first ladies of lit fic is back! As ever, the writing and imagery is absolutely spellbinding. ”
“This [book] is extraordinary from a writer at the top of her game. ”
“A character-driven novel that’s written with empathy and scrupulous plotting … conjuring up the beauty
of the natural world”
Buy now:
Australia
New Zealand
North American Preorders:
USA
Canada
Latest News:
Out in Canada + US:
March 9, 2027!
Maggie Byrd’s story will be published in North America by my wonderful team at Canada’s favourite indie publisher, House of Anansi. Who also publish The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, and The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding.
Thank you to every Canadian and American reader and supporter of my books - I don’t get published without your massive hearts and support.