10. Etta, Annie and Mary are all orphans, and Mary has recently lost one of her parent figures. Edward has a strained relationship with his father, as does Natalya with her mother. How does the novel explore the complicated relationships between children and their parents?

11. Why do you think Etta and Natalya grow wings?

Letter from Author

Hello dear reader!

Thank you for picking up The Gifts, I do so hope you enjoyed it.

I’ve always believed that all stories begin with a ‘what if?’. What if a whale swallowed a ship whole? What if Gods were real and lived alongside us? What if our souls were known as daemons and visible to others?

What if a woman grew wings . . . ?

Just over eleven years ago, I left my life in London behind and moved to a small medieval town in south Shropshire, where forested hills fringe the horizon, capped with remnants of Iron and Bronze Age forts. I felt stories, like wisps of autumn mist, gather around me as I walked the forests and fields, the hills and valleys, engraving myself into the ground as the seasons changed – much like Etta does.

Everywhere I looked, I saw traces of the past, the signs of humans long gone – from medieval burgage layouts and disused quarries to abandoned villages and Neolithic burial cairns. The Industrial Revolution had scarred the landscape here but everywhere I looked, there was nature too, clawing its way back. Nuthatches and peregrines, skylarks and sparrowhawks.

I wanted to know more and so, through books and museums, word of mouth and stories, I fell backwards in time, discovering great Victorian scientists, geologists and botanists, a flourishing of ideas and knowledge. And yet, the women were largely absent, a handful of pioneers, the rest reduced to wives, mothers or siblings of these same men. What if I were to write about them then, these forgotten women, the ones who did not, could not, open the door of opportunity, but who had, against the odds, nudged it open regardless, allowing others to follow in their footsteps? The sort of women for whom there would never be any glory or fame, those whose names and achievements have long since disappeared in the mists of time. And so, I started to assemble my female cast – an aspiring botanist, an artist, a gifted young journalist and a storyteller. Glorious women with curious minds, women who sought enlightenment for its own sake. Glorious women with impossible wings . . .

Of course, I then needed an adversary for them, not just in terms of the wider society, but in an individual too, someone clever and ambitious, someone who could be spurred on by ideas of fame and fortune. Surgery in early 19th century London was dangerous and exciting, wildly competitive and yet rudimentary. It felt inevitable that Edward would be a surgeon, viewing the winged women as his route to success with disastrous consequences.