Fed to Red Birds

Prepare to be bewitched by Iceland and the book that has enchanted readers for decades – and imprisoned one of them.

Elva loves Iceland for many reasons – the epic landscape of gods and volcanoes, weather that’s the polar opposite of her home in Australia, and the fact that it’s where her mother might have gone back to when she disappeared. Iceland is where Elva’s beloved grandfather – the famous children’s book author – lives in a remote village and where the beings that haunt her imagination reside.

Elva is interested in the odd things people make – Victorian collectibles, old spells, taxidermy, fairy tales. The weird, the wonderful and the sometimes macabre. She’s got a few quirks of her own that she’s (mainly) keeping under control. Except one.

Working in a shop of curiosities, studying at an Icelandic language school, Elva begins to explore her obsessions, and when her grandfather suffers a stroke, they threaten to overtake her. Then she meets Remy, a painter who’s got some secrets of his own …

In her captivating debut, Rijn Collins has created a beautifully evocative portrait of an enchanted mind in an enchanting place – a story of everyday magic, both dark and light; of families and the shadows they can cast; of the delights and dangers of the imagination. Fed to Red Birds will transport you to remote corners of both the world and the human heart.

About the Author

Rijn Collins is an award-winning short story writer, published in many journals and anthologies, as well as having numerous audio stories produced: ‘Almost Flamboyant’ won the inaugural Sarah Awards for International Audio Fiction in New York. She has been a guest at many Australian writers’ festivals.

Rijn has also enjoyed two bitterly cold writing residencies: at Listhús in Ólafsfjörður, an Icelandic fishing village that inspired this work, and at Haihatus in Joutsa, a rural forest community in central Finland. She currently lives in Melbourne.