Rosie Garland as part of Gothic Manchester Festival at John Rylands Library

Take a pew in the suitably atmosphere-sodden Historic Reading Room of John Rylands Library and prepare for some spooky goings-on courtesy Rosie Garland’s latest novel, The Night Brother, out now on HarperCollins.

The award-winning author, poet, singer with post-punksters The March Violets and one half of The Time-Travelling Suffragettes will be reading from the book and chatting about gothic style as part of this year’s Gothic Manchester Festival, “the strange offspring of The Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at Manchester Met”.

Set in late nineteenth-century Manchester, and with echoes of Orlando and Jekyll & Hyde, The Night Brother explores questions of identity and follows the fates of sister and brother Edie and Gnome. Says the blurb: “Gnome […] revels in the night-time, while Edie wakes exhausted each morning, unable to quell a sickening sense of unease, with only a dim memory of the dark hours.”

Says The Times: “A rich and ambitious tale set in late Victorian Manchester… Garland’s prose is a delight: playful and exuberant. There are shades of Angela Carter in the mad world she creates… Full marks.”

Mslexia Novel Competition winner Rosie’s earlier novels, The Palace of Curiosities and Vixen, and her poetry collections, including As In Judy, released earlier this year on Flapjack Press, have all met with critical acclaim, and she’s been nominated for the respected Green Carnation, Desmond Elliott and the Polari First Book Prizes. Well worth catching!