More Miracle Than Bird

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For fans of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife and Amor Towles’s Rules of Civility, Alice Miller's sweeping debut novel charts the love story of two of literature’s most fascinating characters: Georgie Hyde-Lees and her husband, W. B. Yeats.

On the eve of World War I, twenty-one-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees — on her own for the first time — is introduced to the acclaimed poet W. B. Yeats at a soir e in London. Although Yeats is famously eccentric and many years her senior, Georgie is drawn to him, and when he extends a cryptic invitation to a secret society, her life is forever changed.

A shadow falls over London as zeppelins stalk overhead and bombs bloom against the skyline. Amidst the chaos, Georgie finds purpose tending to injured soldiers in a makeshift hospital, befriending the wounded and heartbroken Lieutenant Pike, who might need more from her than she is able to give. At night with Yeats, she escapes these realities into an even darker world, becoming immersed in The Order, a clandestine society where ritual, magic, and the conjuring of spirits is practiced and pursued. As forces — both of this world and the next — pull Yeats and Georgie closer together and then apart again, Georgie uncovers a secret that threatens to undo it all.

In bright, commanding prose debut author Alice Miller illuminates the fascinating and unforgettable courtship of Georgie Hyde-Lees and W. B. Yeats. A sweeping tale of faith and love, lost and found and fought for, More Miracle than Bird ingeniously captures the moments — both large and small — on which the fate of whole lives and countries hinge.

"Historical fiction devotees will appreciate this sensitive character study wrapped in an atmospheric, moody rendering of WWI London." Publishers Weekly

"Only a wildly gifted novelist could give us this terrific tale of Georgie Hyde-Lees and her sometime suitor, the much older poet W. B. Yeats. Written with superb emotional rightness." Joan Silber, author of Improvement

"Miller’s stunning debut brilliantly chronicles the romance between midlife poet W. B. Yeats and the younger, shining Georgie Hyde-Lees, backdropped by a startling secret society obsessed with the promise of an Afterlife. A shimmering novel about our yearnings for forever, and the greatest mystery of life, which is, of course, love. It must be said: More Miracle Than Bird is a bit of a miracle in itself." Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

Alice Miller is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the International Institute of Modern Letters. She is on the faculty of the MFA program at Cedar Crest College.