After studying theatre and film, Tor Udall co-founded a dance-theatre company and spent most of her twenties directing, writing and performing. A Thousand Paper Birds is her first novel and was longlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2018. She lives in London with her husband and young children.

@TorUdall

'A masterful exploration of love, loss and the healing power of the natural world. Heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure' Observer

LONGLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2018

Jonah roams Kew Gardens trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of his life after the death of his wife, Audrey. Weathering the seasons and learning to love again, he meets Chloe, an enigmatic origami artist who is hesitant to let down her own walls.

In the gardens he also meets ten-year-old Milly, and Harry, a gardener, both of whom have secrets of their own to keep - and mysteries to solve.

A masterful exploration of love, loss and the healing power of the natural world. Like Max Porter's Grief is a Thing With Feathers, it uses fable, mystery and a poetic sensibility to get at the nub of loss . Heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure

Abundant and richly suggestive ... Udall weaves a complex story about the mysterious ways a life can linger, like a scent, and how grief and love can sometimes feel so vast and overwhelming that no earthly landscape can contain them

A rich and intricate debut, at once subtle and powerful, intent and reflective, lyrical and visceral, expertly cultivating an abundance of life from all that remains after death

A moving story as intricate and elegant as the origami birds that Chloe, one of the characters, folds. I loved this whimsical debut novel

Unputdownable fiction . Poetic and finely wrought

A story of death and its aftermath, which lingers long after the last page

An extraordinary, enchanting book. Writing as fine and precise as a botanical sketch, gorgeously arty themes, powerful yet fragile imagery and a brilliant story - this is a book to love and treasure

This novel is all about seeing a "scarred loveliness" in a damaged world

A poetic exploration of those most difficult of topics, grief and love, against the backdrop of Kew Gardens . Udall deftly leads the reader through the tangled web of relationships binding each of these four people to Audrey, whose own story comes to be revealed through her diaries

Magical, memorable and one I will treasure

I've fallen in love with this outstanding, eloquent book ... It's sublime. It's one of the most beautiful books I have EVER read. It touches your soul

A delicate and beautiful unfolding of grief, loss, love and the way that lives intersect. Insightful and inventive

What a joy it was to read A Thousand Paper Birds, a lovely clockwork of a novel . May it FLY!

A Thousand Paper Birds brings Kew Gardens, and the people who meet each other there, to life with vivid language

Absolutely wonderful. It has the emotional integrity of One Day and the complexity and character depth of Cloud Atlas ... An incredible achievement

Outstanding ... This book is packed with phrases and dialogue that took away my breath, and occasionally brought tears to my eyes. It is so, so intricate, so perfectly balanced. A beautiful novel that should be savoured and treasured, and will be remembered for a long time