A young woman is seduced by the glamour of the circus and drawn into a dangerous world of violence, cruelty and revenge. For readers of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus and Helen Oyeyemi's Mr Fox.
A dark fantasy tale infused with mystery and threat from the award-winning author whose work has been described by Paul Tremblay as “intelligent, dark, wildly inventive".

Sara Sidorova lies dying. As she hovers between life and death, she receives a visitation from Amba, the tiger god who will devour creation if he is released from the chains that bind him. Amba gives Sara Sidorova an extraordinary gift: a glimpse into the future.

Years later, her granddaughter Irenda will grow up in a wartorn country where survival means obedience. When a devastating attack robs her of her mother, she travels to Hrana City. There, her grandmother agrees to teach her the ultimate secret: how to tame death. But it won’t be easy…

In the circus that offers her first taste of power, Irenda will have to tame another tiger if she is to survive. Amongst the magicians, the strongmen and the contortionists, she will start down a dangerous road, to carry out a revenge decades in the making... and bring justice into the world for herself and for her family.

Rich with glamour and strangeness, brutality and deceit and the dark magic of the circus, this haunting fable will chill your bones and make your heart ache.

Helen Marshall's profile page

Helen Marshall is Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. She has won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award and received endorsements from authors such as Kelly Link and Paul Tremblay. Her debut novel The Migration, was one of The Guardian’s top science fiction and fantasy books of the year. She lives in Australia. Find her on Twitter/X @manuscriptgal and on Instagram @hairside

Praise for The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death

“This is a gorgeous, brutal dream of a book. It asks questions about power and belief, about time and magic and love, and every sentence pulses with danger and beauty. It will haunt me for a long time. I implore you all to lose yourself in its strange enchantments.”
Sarah Brooks, bestselling author of The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands

“Extraordinary. Helen Marshall channels the best of Angela Carter then takes it up a notch or three. A gloriously bewitching new tale from one of our best fabulists.”
Angela “A.G.” Slatter, award-winning author of The Briar Book of the Dead

“The Lady, the Tiger, and the Girl Who Loved Death blew my mind, and forever changed how I looked at writing. Haunting and soaring, transcendent, and masterfully executed – Helen Marshall’s talent is unparalleled.”
Tashan Mehta, author of Mad Sisters of Esi

“Lyrical, beautiful and brilliant, The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death is a magic puzzle box that surprises and delights with every revelation.”
Kaaron Warren, author of The Underhistory

“Chillingly beautiful, with wonder and dread in every word. Fans of Pan’s Labyrinth, The Night Circus and The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands should be first in line for the big-top spectacle of Marshall’s lyrical storytelling and wild imagination.”
Chris and Jen Sugden, authors of High Vaultage

“It is a rare story which manages to be thoughtful and colourful at once. Angela Carter did that, and now Helen Marshall does it in her own way. A book which you can’t stop reading, and then you can’t stop thinking about.”
Francesco Dimitri, author of The Dark Side of the Sky

“Helen Marshall’s writing is, as ever, mesmerising. She has a vivid, keen-eyed vision of the past and its possibilities, of hope and hatred, of cold realities and dark dreams colliding. This is a sensuous, spellbinding read.”
Aliya Whiteley

“Gilded in bone-dust, with the breath of a predator, Marshall’s The Lady, the Tiger, and the Girl who Loved Death is a pageant of the masks myths and politics alike wear as they pace their cages, and the bloody chains that bind them.”
Kathleen Jennings, author of Honeyeater

“Neither the Lady, the Tiger, nor the Girl are who you expect them to be in this stunning novel of familial longing, authoritarian horror, and revolutionary fire. There's a dark space between devotion and obsession, loyalty and obedience, sacrifice and self-destruction, and ambition and ruthlessness. In those dark spaces Helen Marshall has conjured a burning flourish of a novel that will linger in you like a bullet.”
Bryan Camp, author of Gather the Fortunes

“A poignant journey into the stories we seek, the stories we find, and the stories that find us. Gorgeously written, magical and wise. This is both a fable for today, and a fire-side tale, at once timely and timeless. Helen Marshall conjures up worlds like a magician, full of wondrous things, of colour and sensuality, raw truths and heartbreak. She is the master storyteller we have been waiting for.”
Marian Womack, author of On the Nature of Magic