The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird

If you were charmed by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, laughed with Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and cried over A Man Called Ove, you will love Ricky Bird.

No one loved making forts more than Ricky. A fort was a place of safety and possibility. It shut out the world and enclosed her and Ollie within any story she wanted to tell ...

Ricky Bird loves making up stories for her brother Ollie almost as much as she loves him. The imaginary worlds she creates are wild and whimsical places full of unlimited possibilities.

Real life is another story. Ricky’s father has abandoned them and the family has moved to a bleak new neighbourhood. Worse still, her mother’s new boyfriend, Dan, has come with the furniture.

But Ricky Bird is a force to be reckoned with. As the mastermind of so many outlandish adventures, her imagination is her best weapon. As her father used to say, if you can spin a good yarn you can get on in life.

The trouble is that in the best stories characters sometimes take on a life of their own and no one, not even Ricky, is able to imagine the consequences.

Beautifully written, heartbreakingly funny and deeply moving, this book has already been compared to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Lost and Found, Shuggie Bain, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and A Monster Calls. But Ricky’s story is all her own – and it will stay with you long after the last page.

‘Fierce and wonderful and utterly singular, Ricky embodies the sheer joy and transformative power of storytelling.’ Kate Mildenhall, author of The Mother Fault and Skylarking

‘A wise, tender but unflinching portrait of an ordinary family and the unordinary girl at its heart. Ricky – fragile, tough, endearing and funny – is a fabulous creation. She'll walk around in my world all year, and more.’ Kristina Olsson, award-winning author of Shell and Boy, Lost

“'A wise, tender but unflinching portrait of an ordinary family and the unordinary girl at its heart. Ricky - fragile, tough, endearing and funny - is a fabulous creation. She'll walk around in my world all year, and more.'”

‘A wise, tender but unflinching portrait of an ordinary family and the unordinary girl at its heart. Ricky – fragile, tough, endearing and funny – is a fabulous creation. She'll walk around in my world all year, and more.’  -- Kristina Olsson, award-winning author of Shell and Boy, Lost
‘Fierce and wonderful and utterly singular, Ricky embodies the sheer joy and transformative power of storytelling’  -- Kate Mildenhall The Mother Fault and Skylarking
‘Connell has created a rich, complex, multi-layered character in Ricky Bird’  The AU Review
‘[Ricky’s] vivid narration buoys a novel through dark and desperate undercurrents … The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird has been compared to Curious Incident and Shuggie Bain, and it’s true that Diane Connell lends a unique voice to a child struggling to make sense of an adult world.’  Sydney Morning Herald
‘Heart-warming, life-affirming, happy and sad … I absolutely loved Ricky Bird and her witty, insouciant, funny, critical, quick and loving personality.’  -- Cass Moriarty, author of The Promise Seed
‘Compared to best-selling titles like Elinor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Diane Connell’s The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird had a lot to live up to from the beginning. But it holds its own in a brand new lane. While Ricky Bird has a similarly unreliable narrator and is just as cleverly written, this book has the potential to take readers on an even more explosive rollercoaster of emotions …’  Glam Adelaide
‘Gritty and raw, tender and heartbreaking, this is a beautifully written tale of an ordinary family and the fierce girl at its heart who will stay with you long after the last page is turned and the last tear has dried.’ Daily Telegraph
‘A heart-churning, sob-inducing novel with equal shades of dark and light in the vein of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine; you will race through the pages, just itching to jump in and befriend (and protect) the most singular Ricky Bird.’  Angela Bennetts, COAST Magazine
'The most gorgeously heartbreaking book ... Sensitively written and beautifully expressed, it reduced me to tears but also made me smile. Ricky Bird will touch your heart as well as break it.' New Zealand Woman's Weekly
‘What a marvellous invention is Ricky Bird … Often funny and frequently heartbreaking.’ New Zealand Listener

DIANE CONNELL was born and educated in New Zealand and has lived and worked in Japan, France and the UK. She began her writing career in a newspaper office in Tokyo before becoming an advertising copywriter and writing for the international non-profit sector. For many years she lived in Paris, where she began writing as a novelist. She later moved to London, where her first two books, Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar and Sherry Cracker Gets Normal, were published under the name of D.J. Connell. She now lives in Sydney.

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