Emma Hewitt‘s debut novel, Rooster, is already garnering high praise with Alan Cummings describing it as ‘Vivid, personal and filled with wisdom, sass and life lessons… this is a beautiful book and I cannot wait to see what she does next’ and Gillian Anderson declaring that ‘Emma Hewitt is a dazzling writer. Poignant, vivid, laugh-out-loud funny, Rooster is a sparkling debut that you won’t be able to put down. I can’t recommend it enough’. Jojo Moyes also loves it, calling Natasha ‘a heroine with whom a million women will identify’ and Esther Freud stating that ‘when Rooster ended I even missed the rooster’. We couldn’t agree more with this incredible praise, and we’re thrilled to finally be able to share the gorgeous cover, designed by Anna Morrison.

Natasha’s life is a perfectly calibrated illusion, motivated by a feverish desperation to hide her dysfunctional childhood. No one who knows her can deny this strategy is working.

Social mobility: tick.

Happy daughter: tick.

Keeping recovering addict mother at bay: tick.

Scheduling sex to keep marriage alive: tick.

When her husband leaves her for their slovenly, easy-going dog walker, Natasha’s carefully curated world implodes, and she is plunged into a spiral of chaos and obsession as her perfect life unravels.

But an unlikely friendship with a rooster named Freddie Mercury and his owner Barry sets Natasha on the slow journey back home, to her family, and to herself.

A dazzlingly funny debut novel by former filmmaker and screenwriter Emma Hewitt, which explores mid-life, motherhood and the twilight of a long marriage.