Books
I write novels and non-fiction about beauty, grief, courage, creativity, belonging, and the strange ways we find our way home.
My new novel is coming this September:
Dear reader, meet Maggie Byrd.
‘It will never be like this again.’
She looked up. He met her eye.
‘You’ll never love anyone 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 carefully constructed facade 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.
Bordering a town famous for its rare opalised fossil discoveries, the land lies near a volcanic lake rumoured to be cursed, and a sacred, ephemeral tea-tree swamp. It is land rich with living culture, and home to an abundance of native flora and fauna. And it’s long been sought after by developers, willing to pay any price. In the nineties, this wild, vivid place also shaped Maggie when she was an angry, lost teenager. It was her home and 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.
The World Beneath Her Feet is a luminous novel about belonging, memory, time, first love, and what it takes to come home to ourselves and each other.
Sing with everything you’ve got for everything that matters to you, to let in all the light you can. However you can.
— from The World Beneath Her Feet
Dear reader, meet the family…
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Spanning two decades, set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart follows Alice's unforgettable journey, as she learns that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.
The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding
This book is for everyone who has ever felt stuck creatively. It is for anyone who longs to create but doesn't know how to find a way into, or back to their imagination. Uplifting, powerful and inspiring, The House That Joy Built is an exhilarating, openhearted clarion call to experience the joy and freedom of creativity.
The House that Joy Built
The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding is a sweeping, deeply beautiful and profoundly moving novel about the far-reaches of sisterly love, the power of wearing your heart on your skin, and the ways life can transform when we find the courage to feel the fullness of both grief and joy.
The World Beneath Her Feet
A luminous, deeply emotional, and utterly absorbing novel about belonging, memory, and the loves and landscapes that make us - and what it takes to come home to ourselves and each other. The World Beneath Her Feet is immersive Australian storytelling at its finest.
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My books have been published in 30+ territories, sold over 600,000 copies, and been adapted for screen by Prime Video. Mindblown.
✷ My books have been published in 30+ territories, sold over 600,000 copies, and been adapted for screen by Prime Video. Mindblown.
Responses to my books*
*that still make me well up
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Ringland's storytelling is driven by an undimmed sense of wonder at the darkness and light, the damage and love in people.
— Sydney Morning Herald, reviewing The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
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This intercontinental journey into joy, grief, nature and magic confirms Holly Ringland as one of Australia’s most precious, life-changing storytellers.
— Booktopia, reviewing The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding
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A non-fiction masterpiece… encourages readers to reflect on their fears and grant themselves permission to create and feel joy… you’ll find sanctuary in this book.
— Apple Books, reviewing The House That Joy Built
Want to read more?
Join The Joy Rise.
Letters for creative courage and connection from my desk to you.
