Liz Hyder sold the film rights to her YA debut, Bearmouth, a dystopian thriller about child miners fighting injustice, before it had arrived in the bookshops. In The Gifts, a Victorian novel for adults, four feisty women struggle against the constraints of a patriarchal society. When two of them grow wings, they are exploited by a ruthless surgeon, Edward Meake, who believes he is serving science and God’s purpose.
Etta, inspired by the real-life Mary McGhie from Ludlow, is the daughter of a freed slave and a former plantation owner. After their father’s death her stepbrother banishes her from the family house and she resides in the keeper’s cottage with her beloved dog, Scout. A budding botanist, Etta spends her days tramping over the Shropshire countryside classifying and sketching plants.
