Shortlisted for:
British Fantasy Society award for Best Fantasy Novel!
British Fantasy Society award for Best Newcomer!
British Science Fiction Association Best Novel award!
Threading the Labyrinth by Tiffani Angus
“A poignant and elegant meditation on time and identity” – M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts
“Absolute garden of delights, full of sensual mystery, strange dreams, and haunting and peculiar magic. A beautiful debut.” – Alison Littlewood, author of The Hidden People and Mistletoe
“If Robert MacFarlane wrote a ghost story this would be it. Haunting, delicate and multi-layered, Angus channels her own humane understanding of our relationship with quiet places of the world, the places hidden away, neglected, but always eager to blossom with the right kind of attention.” –
Helen Marshall, award-winning author of The Migration and Gifts for the One Who Comes After
“Absolute garden of delights, full of sensual mystery, strange dreams, and haunting and peculiar magic. A beautiful debut.” – Alison Littlewood, author of The Hidden People and Mistletoe
“If Robert MacFarlane wrote a ghost story this would be it. Haunting, delicate and multi-layered, Angus channels her own humane understanding of our relationship with quiet places of the world, the places hidden away, neglected, but always eager to blossom with the right kind of attention.” –
Helen Marshall, award-winning author of The Migration and Gifts for the One Who Comes After
Podcast
Synopsis:
Toni, the American owner of a failing gallery, is unexpectedly called to Hertfordshire when she inherits a manor house from a mysterious lost relative. What she really needs is something valuable to sell to save her business. But, leaving the New Mexico desert behind, all she finds are a crumbling building, overgrown gardens, and a vast archive in need of cataloguing. Soon she is immersed in the history of the house: the gardens that seem to change in the twilight; the ghost of a fighter plane from World War Two; the figures she sees from the corner of her eye. She must ask herself, what if her heritage has carried lives across centuries.
Where to get it:
Unsung Stories (UK: paperback, ePub and Kindle)
Amazon UK (Kindle and paperback)
Waterstones (paperback available to order or ask for it in the shop)
Blackwell's (paperback available to order or ask for it in the shop)
Amazon US (Kindle available; some physical copies being sold, too)
Book Depository (paperback available for free worldwide shipping!)
Reviews:
Blue Book Balloon "It's a scented, heady paradise of a book, rambling wild in places and with lots to discover in hidden corners."
SF Crowsnest "One of the delights of this novel is the way that it focuses on the invisible. Not just the ghosts or the labyrinth itself but the gardeners who tend it."
Life in Sci-Fi (Andrew Wallace) "Like walking around the enigmatic walled garden that centres the tale, Threading the Labyrinth is a fascinating but often pleasurably alarming journey."
The British Fantasy Society "Angus’ changeling tale, woven throughout, creates the perfect air of supernatural mystery"
The Fantasy Hive "Reading Threading the Labyrinth, like working in the garden at its heart, is a hypnotic experience, drawing you in as the layered and overlaid stories bleed into each other."
Andromeda Spaceways Magazine "It’s a romance, a fairytale, and a horror story all wrapped into one."
The Frumuious Consortium "Threading The Labyrinth is at once a romance of England and a gorgeously layered story of ghosts through the centuries."
Runalong the Shelves"...throughout there is a disconcerting feeling that this garden is more than what it seems permeating the novel."
Salon Futura "...this is a fun book for anyone who enjoys the creepy side of English Magic."
Online Interviews:
Milford Writing Workshop Blog
Simon Bestwick's Blog #The Lockdown
Laura Madeline’s ‘Talking Food’
Breaking the Glass Slipper blog
The Frumious Consortium
Guest post on Pete Sutton's blog
Video Interview with short readings:
Hosted by the Glasgow in 2024 WorldCon Bid, interview by Ruth Booth.
Podcast Interview:
Bookylicious: "Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy?"
Other online content:
John Scalzi's Whatever blog:
A BIG IDEA post
Annotated Excerpt at Civilian Reader:
Annotated excerpt of Threading the Labyrinth
Article in The Cambridge Independent:
"Author Tiffani Angus on time travels in a secret garden"
Article in the University News HQ:
"Seed of an idea blossoms into published novel"
Women Writers, Women's Books articles:
"Threading the Labyrinth of Historical Research: How the twists and turns led to a creative writing PhD" (posted July 2020)
"Doing a PhD in Creative Writing: Is it for everyone?" (posted Feb 2019)
Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything):
With just me: Posted June 24, 2020
A group AMA with all the Unsung Stories writers: Posted April 23, 2021
Videos of Readings (two different excerpts):
BSFA Solidarity Salon #4: in which I waffle a bit while I wait for my mom to log on and then give some behind-the-scenes titbits of writing Threading the Labyrinth before reading a section (29 minutes)
SRFC (Super Relaxed Fantasy Club) 40.0: in which I give a short reading of Threading the Labyrinth different from the excerpt above (14 minutes)
Search Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for #ThreadingTheLabyrinth for photos of places that inspired the book and teasers about its contents.