"Astonishing...With the intensity of a perfect balance between the mythic and the real, The Rain Heron keeps turning and twisting, taking you to unexpected places. A deeply emotional and satisfying read. Beautifully written." --Jeff VanderMeer, author of Borne. One of LitHub 's Most Anticipated Books of 2021. A gripping novel of myth, environment, adventure, and an unlikely friendship, from an award-winning Australian author Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup d'état. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting, farming, trading, and forgetting the contours of what was once a normal life. But her quiet stability is disrupted when an army unit, led by a young female soldier, comes to the mountains on government orders in search of a legendary creature called the rain heron―a mythical, dangerous, form-shifting bird with the ability to change the weather. Ren insists that the bird is simply a story, yet the soldier will not be deterred, forcing them both into a gruelling quest. Spellbinding and immersive, Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron is an astounding, mythical exploration of human resilience, female friendship, and humankind’s precarious relationship to nature. As Ren and the soldier hunt for the heron, a bond between them forms, and the painful details of Ren’s former life emerge―a life punctuated by loss, trauma, and a second, equally magical and dangerous creature. Slowly, Ren's and the soldier’s lives entwine, unravel, and ultimately erupt in a masterfully crafted ending in which both women are forced to confront their biggest fears―and regrets. Robbie Arnott, one of Australia’s most acclaimed young novelists, sews magic into reality with a steady, confident hand. Bubbling with rare imagination and ambition, The Rain Heron is an emotionally charged and dazzling novel, one that asks timely yet eternal questions about environment, friendship, nationality, and the myths that bind us. "Daring, atmospheric . . . The novel moves at a quicksilver pace, shimmering with menace and electric visions of forests and lake-filled valleys." -- Anderson Tepper, The New York Times Book Review "Arnott’s writing is clear and compelling, particularly in descriptions of the folkloric bird, with its 'rain-smeared transparency.'” -- The New Yorker (Briefly Noted) "A gorgeous and spellbinding eco-fantasy." -- Buzzfeed "A dazzlingly visual novel . . . these aren’t special effects, the spectacle of the screen, or images for the pure sake of optical impact. This is the visuality of myth, in which images are important not for their beauty or grandeur but for their resonance, their power to encapsulate deep truths more fully and potently than any amount of exposition ever could . . . a powerful story, beautifully rendered." -- Ellie Robins, Los Angeles Review of Books "In this lush, brutal fairy tale, Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott imagines a new mythical creature . . . Drenched in natural imagery, Arnott's vivid descriptive passages give readers a realistic world with enough wonder left to make a fit home for a creature out of a fable. While the heron is Arnott's original creation, it feels as ancient and established as a unicorn." -- Shelf Awareness (starred) "From the first fable of the rain heron to its moments of crisp lucidity, Arnott’s second novel enraptures the reader in a sense of awe . . . The Rain Heron is a truly spellbinding tale of environmental caution, capitalist retribution, reverberating trauma, and our hidden urge to believe in the fantastical in equal measure." -- Zeena Yasmine Fuleihan, EcoTheo Review "Superb descriptions of nature and weather, of human emotion and animal instinct, by Australian novelist Arnott evoke a landscape that is both startlingly immediate and mysteriously otherworldly: the perfect setting for a tense narrative of eco-disaster and fragile endurance. At once an urgent thriller and an elegiac fable, this mesmerizing tale is as lyrical as it is suspenseful." -- Kirkus "Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s visceral The Road , an air of savage solitude infuses Arnott’s lyrically atmospheric postapocalyptic novel, where trauma and resilience are connected to memory and the loss of both self and surroundings." -- Booklist "Vibrant and violent . . . Arnott fascinates with fable-like stories and thoughtful meditations on the consequences of lessons learned too late." -- Publishers Weekly “In this lush and harrowing novel, Ren joins Harker, a soldier, in her search for the mythic rain heron and both are forever changed by the quest. Robbie Arnott chronicles their voyage through a harsh and wondrous landscape in gorgeous, lyric prose, while his plot moves with the swift elegance of an expertly-crafted page-turner . The Rain Heron is a potent fable that speaks urgently to our present times .” --Laura van den Berg, author of I Hold A Wolf by the Ears “Astonishing...With the intensity of a perfect balance b