Tiger

A mesmerising literary novel set between the UK and Siberia about mothers, daughters and the wild side of female nature, from the prize-winning author of Larchfield.

Set across two continents, Tiger is a sweeping story of survival and redeeming love that plunges the reader into one of the world's last wildernesses with blistering authenticity.

Frieda is a primatologist, sensitive and solitary, until a violent attack shatters her ordered world. In her new role as a zookeeper, she confronts a very different ward: an injured wild tiger.

Deep in the Siberian taiga, Tomas, a Russian conservationist, fears that the natural order has toppled. The king tiger has been killed by poachers and a spectacular tigress now patrols his vast territory as her own.

In a winter of treacherous competition, the path of the tigress and her cub crosses with an Udeghe huntress and her daughter. Vengeance must follow, and the fates of both tigers and people are transformed.

Learning of her tiger's past offers Frieda the chance of freedom. Faced with the savage forces of nature, she must trust to her instinct and, like the tiger, find a way to live in the world.

About the Author

Polly Clark was born in Toronto and divides her time between Helensburgh on Scotland's west coast and a houseboat in London. Her poetry collections have between them won the Eric Gregory Award and been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Michael Marks Awards. Her first novel Larchfield won the MsLexia Novel Prize and was published in 2017 to critical acclaim. She has worked as a zookeeper at Edinburgh Zoo, where her fascination with Siberian tigers began. For Tiger she undertook a research trip to the remote Russian taiga, where, in the depths of the Siberian winter, at temperatures of -35C, she learned how to track wild tigers.