A beautifully written, brutally honest dissection of motherhood by a woman who has five children, from pregnancy to teenagers, covering both the extreme highs and lows. Stroud's writing examines what it is to be a woman with the same sensitive skill fans of her first memoir, The Wild Other, will recall. Independent

So yes it’s about the squitchy, squidgy yumminess but also about the bone crushing exhaustion and repetition. Because I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t struggle with motherhood in some way however they portray themselves. My Wild and Sleepless Nights by Clover Stroud is a robust, raw and rare celebration of motherhood that had me laughing out loud one moment and crying the next. Rachel Joyce, Observer A few weeks before Christmas, Clover's sister died of breast cancer, aged forty-six. Just days before, she had been given years to live. Her sudden death split Clover's life apart. The Red of My Blood charts Clover's fearless passage through the first year after her sister's death. I wish I’d talked to Nell more about death, but by the time I brought it up it was too late; she was too close, she was looking at it right in the face, And she died with so much courage” I know the festival is virtual this year, but I can’t wait. I love TAL – I think it’s my favourite literary festival. It’s always a complete joy so it will be exciting to do it slightly differently and the idea that people can watch it from all around the world is really inspiring.”Which does beg the question about her own large family. “I think it’s my endless desire to take my life to the edge and to feel everything, to take things to an extreme and to fill my plate as high as possible. But I’m also aware as I deal with it that having children is the best and worse thing that can happen to you, and that I’m going to miss it when it’s over.

As tender, blazing, funny and unflinching as the love it describes. At last someone has given a voice to the days spent hiding at the school gates, and scrambling for items of vaguely matching PE kit, and mouldy orange peel down the sofa, and the love that can reduce me to tears on an almost daily basis. I want to give this triumphant book to every mother I know. I want to say to them, Look what we did and we do; and it’s all in here. Rachel Joyce Clover Stroud writes with precise intimacy and fearless honesty. She has somehow found a wholly original way to describe motherhood and, in doing so, truly conveys what it's like, in all its messy, sexy glory. * Hadley Freeman * A beautifully written, brutally honest dissection of motherhood by a woman who has five children, from pregnancy to teenagers, covering both the extreme highs and lows. Stroud's writing examines what it is to be a woman with the same sensitive skill fans of her first memoir, The Wild Other, will recall. * Independent * Clover's expertise is writing about family life in a way that feels both new and entirely familiar' - Pandora Sykes Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. In her touching, provocative and profoundly insightful book, she captures a sense of what motherhood really feels like – how intense, sensuous, joyful, boring, profound and dark it can be. My Wild and Sleepless Nights examines what it means to be a mother, and reveals with unflinching honesty the many conflicting emotions that this entails: the joy and the wonder, the loneliness and despair.

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What does being a mother really feel like? Clover Stroud’s powerhouse of a memoir gets closer than anything else I have read to answering that question. The motherhood she describes is the very antithesis of the sanitised, smiling vision we are sold in washing powder ads... She excels in evoking the feral, instinctive forces that motherhood unleashes... This is a vision of motherhood for the (now middle-aged) MDMA generation... The reader is simply swept up in her painful, wonderful world. Buy it, read it, and enjoy it for the wild ride it is. Alice O'Keeffe, The Guardian And then Clover remembers that we are actually here to discuss her appearance tomorrow at the Thame Arts and Literature Festival (TAL) where she is being interviewed by the lovely Kerry Potter, and perks up. I think lots of people get really hysterical about teenagers and their behaviour. So the book is also about teens and adolescents and championing them rather than sharpening our knives, because they are so rewarding and wonderful in so many ways.

In Rooted, Sarah weaves her own story around those who taught her what it means to be a farmer. She shines a light on the human side of modern farming, and shows how land connects us all, not only in terms of global sustainability but in our relationships with our physical and mental health, our communities and our planet. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t struggle with motherhood in some way however they portray themselves” Because to me she wasn’t Nell Gifford, she was my sister. A lot of people had a sense of what she was like, which had very little to do with what she was actually like, and how complex she was, and how her outward persona was different to her private life.” Stroud's warm and honest memoir is the take on parenting we all need. An unflinching look at how to hold on to your own personality when motherhood threatens to submerge it. i Newspaper Beautiful, raw, touching and incredibly honest, My Wild and Sleepless Nights is a poetic and plain-spoken portrayal of the physical, emotional and psychological essence of mothering that will resonate with readers everywhere. About My Wild and Sleepless NightsBrilliant motherhood memoir...Clover Stroud is one of the very best writers on the light and dark of motherhood and, if you enjoyed her debut The Wild Other, you'll love this. The book follows the first year of her fifth child's life as she juggles looking after a newborn with dealing with her teenage son's problematic behaviour. The writing is sublime and honest. * Good Housekeeping * I have had a lot of loss in my life,” Clover says, “so the next book is about living with that darkness and thinking about that what loss has done to me and alchemising that into something more beautiful, as well as how it has shaped my life.”