The Red of my Blood

A beautiful book. I loved every word. – Fearne Cotton * Happy Place Podcast *Stroud’s beautiful new memoir, The Red of My Blood, is studded with agonising moments … This is a colourful blast of feeling that picks up on the hallucinogenic oddness of grief, along with the importance of honouring death as an unavoidable part of life. – Gwendolyn Smith * i newspaper *Like a magician, she puts her grief into a hat and pulls out 70,000 perfect words to describe what it is like when language fails you. Courageous and utterly compelling, this is a book that will wring you out, wear you down and leave you filled with wonder. – Francis Wilson * The Oldie *Clover writes with visceral honesty about the lived experience of her grief for her sister Nell - in all its hues; moving swiftly between darkness and light whilst her love for Nell remains powerfully alive and present. – Julia SamuelThe Red of my Blood is one of the most haunting, gripping books I’ve read in recent memory. Stroud’s writing about overwhelming loss is knife-sharp, beautiful, and profound. This is a masterful memoir, which will echo with its readers for a long time. – Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles and CirceClover’s writing is sensationally beautiful and so quick with life in the face of utter bereavement as to be almost a resurrection in itself. She is as golden as her sister clearly was. – Laura Cumming, author of On Chapel SandsI love Clover Stroud’s writing. It feels like she’s mining for treasure, drilling down with lyrical prose, getting to the thing that makes us human. That this book about death and grief is so life-affirming is a testament to her talent. – Christie WatsonClover Stroud is a fearless explorer of the human heart, and a writer of incomparable grace and passion. She also understands more about loss, sorrow, grief, and resilience than most people will ever have to learn. She is a gift, and so is her work. – Elizabeth GilbertA miracle of a book. A hope of a book. An absolute gutting masterpiece of a book so that it transcends book and becomes a record of life, a symphony of love and all the pain that must be endured to hear that kind of glittering gorgeous love. A must read for anyone with a soul. – Lisa Taddeo

With brutal, beautiful honesty, Clover articulates how bereavement shocks and dislocates - and in all the pain, there’s SO much life.

Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for the Sunday Times, the Guardian and the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights- A Mother’s Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood- A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated ‘best books of the year’. She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her five children.