✦ Coming Soon — New Novel

Hamadryad

A novel

In a climate-ravaged future UK, the Green Party is elected, and their bold young leader institutes a national programme to restore ancient traditions by pairing trees with humans. From huge civic festivals to different personal names, a new framework is put in place overnight. In the aftermath of this new world, a small community forms in the abandoned tunnels of the London Underground which questions the changes, while others embrace the new order with a cult-like intensity. Hamadryad imagines the lives of three very different people with their trees, and explores the way the world changes when we fundamentally alter our sense of self.

Coming Soon
Hamadryad by Lorna Robinson
Coming Soon
Also by the Author

✦   The Collection   ✦

The Birder
The Birder

An Ovid-inspired novel set in an alternate Oxford, illustrated with linocut prints of birds.

Order Now →
Flower Gatherers
Flower Gatherers

Two women separated by millennia, bound together by the mysteries of the Minoan world.

Order Now →
Telling Tales in Nature
Telling Tales in Nature

Greek myths retold from the perspective of plants — Underworld, Forest, Orchard & Meadow Tales.

Order Now →
Hamadryad Coming Soon
Hamadryad

A bold new novel set in a climate-ravaged future UK, where trees and humans are bound together.

Coming Soon

✦   Reviews   ✦

"A delightful read… charming, witty and wise. There's no evil antagonist, no violence, just a bunch of people trying to make sense of the pain, mystery and beauty of the world."

— Chris Beckett, award-winning author

"An intriguing and moving novel about metamorphosis. Likely to appeal strongly to readers of the Northern Lights trilogy — a more intimate and realist narrative rooted in Greek mythology and Ovid's Metamorphoses."

— Dr Gary Snapper, University of Oxford

✦   Books   ✦

The Birder

The Birder

An Ovid-inspired novel set in an alternate Oxford where people transform instead of dying.

Since witnessing her brother change into a blackbird at an early age, Merel has never felt quite at home in the world. She embarks on a journey through science, religion, art and philosophy in her effort to come to terms with her loss. When she discovers a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses in her local library, she soon becomes convinced that her world was not meant to be this way, and that this book holds the secret for putting things back on track.

Illustrated with linocut prints of birds around the city of Oxford, The Birder creates a mysterious world that is filled with familiar sorrows and joys.

Features locations including St Giles' Cafe, Gloucester Green, Martyrs' Memorial, Cheney School, Lady Margaret Hall, C.S. Lewis Nature Reserve, and St Mary and St John Church.

Order on Amazon
Flower Gatherers

Flower Gatherers

A Minoan-inspired novel exploring themes of motherhood, growing up, and what can really be known about the distant past.

A lonely researcher discovers engravings which overturn the understanding of an ancient civilisation. A teenager growing up on a small island makes a decision which will change her life forever.

Flower Gatherers follows two stories of discovery and loss, as the lives of two women separated by millennia become deeply intertwined. Blending history and imagination, the novel explores the repeating patterns of human relationships, the persistent quest for knowledge and the limits of our understanding.

Key chapters are set in the Ashmolean Museum's Aegean World Gallery. Striking illustrations in each chapter by artist Lydia Hall cast contemporary scenes in Minoan settings.

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Telling Tales in Nature

Telling Tales in Nature: Compendium

A collection of myths retold from the perspective of the spirits of plants.

This compendium includes all four books in the Telling Tales in Nature series: Underworld Tales, Forest Tales, Orchard Tales, and Meadow Tales.

Each chapter features an introduction to the plant with botanical drawings, followed by a retelling and reimagining of the myth from the perspective of the plant spirit. The stories are accompanied by brief notes on sources and explanations of the retellings.

Written by Lorna Robinson with illustrations by artist Lydia Hall.

Order on Amazon

✦   About   ✦

Lorna studied Classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. After a chance encounter with a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel in her finals year, she became curious about the similarities between it and Ovid, and eventually received a doctorate from University College London on 'Magical Realism in Ovid's Metamorphoses' in 2005.

She created The Iris Project and Iris magazine to promote Classics in state schools in 2006, and runs Latin and Greek projects in state schools across the UK. She created and runs the Iris Classics Centre, which opened in 2013, and the Rumble Museum, the first museum in a state school, which was awarded Arts Council Accreditation in March 2020.

She has written non-fiction books including "Ovid and Gabriel Garcia Marquez", the Latin course Telling Tales in Latin and its sequel Distant Lands, and Telling Tales in Greek, introducing ancient Greek through the stories of Homer.

She also writes classics-inspired fiction, including The Birder, Flower Gatherers and Telling Tales in Nature. She runs a regular Classics and Creative Writing Cafe.

Get in Touch

For inquiries about books, events, or the Classics and Creative Writing Café

lorna@irisproject.org.uk