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The Leveret
Not yet published
Expected 18 Jun 26Once of the most anticipated books of the year according to Sunday Times Style and Glamour
A heartbreakingly gorgeous and lyrically haunting debut novel about grief in the aftermath of baby loss and the power of queer love – perfect for fans of Julia Armfield, Sophie Mackintosh and Daisy Johnson
Moving to the countryside is supposed to fix Clare and Phoebe’s relationship. A fresh start, a change of scenery, a chance to heal after the miscarriage of their baby girl.
Instead, Phoebe feels suffocated. Back in the rural community she ran from at seventeen and unable to face the partner she cannot help, she throws herself into work on the family farm. Clare is a stranger in the village, uninitiated and out of place. She spends her days drifting around the cottage, its walls groaning and shifting as she withdraws into a world inside her head.
One day, wandering through the forest nearby, Clare finds a leveret – her own little Isla. A surrogate to lick and love. A way to feel whole again.
But as Isla grows into an adult hare she becomes wild and unruly – a kicking, biting, scratching creature. With Clare’s grasp on reality growing ever more tenuous, Phoebe begins to question whether Isla is the cure for grief Clare is searching for as she desperately clings on to the woman she loves . . .
With this bruisingly tender love story, debut author Anna Goldreich has conjured a hazy dream of a novel about the fantasies we create as a refuge from grief. The Leveret is a heartbreakingly gorgeous and lyrically haunting hymn to queer love and the power to rebuild from the wreckage of a relationship.
A heartbreakingly gorgeous and lyrically haunting debut novel about grief in the aftermath of baby loss and the power of queer love – perfect for fans of Julia Armfield, Sophie Mackintosh and Daisy Johnson
Moving to the countryside is supposed to fix Clare and Phoebe’s relationship. A fresh start, a change of scenery, a chance to heal after the miscarriage of their baby girl.
Instead, Phoebe feels suffocated. Back in the rural community she ran from at seventeen and unable to face the partner she cannot help, she throws herself into work on the family farm. Clare is a stranger in the village, uninitiated and out of place. She spends her days drifting around the cottage, its walls groaning and shifting as she withdraws into a world inside her head.
One day, wandering through the forest nearby, Clare finds a leveret – her own little Isla. A surrogate to lick and love. A way to feel whole again.
But as Isla grows into an adult hare she becomes wild and unruly – a kicking, biting, scratching creature. With Clare’s grasp on reality growing ever more tenuous, Phoebe begins to question whether Isla is the cure for grief Clare is searching for as she desperately clings on to the woman she loves . . .
With this bruisingly tender love story, debut author Anna Goldreich has conjured a hazy dream of a novel about the fantasies we create as a refuge from grief. The Leveret is a heartbreakingly gorgeous and lyrically haunting hymn to queer love and the power to rebuild from the wreckage of a relationship.
205 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication June 18, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 3, 2026
I don’t often enjoy stream of consciousness as a narrative device but it worked really well in this case. The switch to Phoebe’s POV in between Clare’s chapters was refreshing and keeps the story from dragging.
We follow Clare and Phoebe who are trying to deal with the loss of their unborn baby. In her depression Clare latches onto a baby hare (leveret) she finds in a hedgerow. She starts treating it as a sort of surrogate for what she lost. As she spirals more and more into depression we see the despair of her wife Phoebe and the people close to her at their inability to understand or help her.
I am not a mother, nor do I want children of my own, but I was deeply moved by this exploration of maternal grief.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
We follow Clare and Phoebe who are trying to deal with the loss of their unborn baby. In her depression Clare latches onto a baby hare (leveret) she finds in a hedgerow. She starts treating it as a sort of surrogate for what she lost. As she spirals more and more into depression we see the despair of her wife Phoebe and the people close to her at their inability to understand or help her.
I am not a mother, nor do I want children of my own, but I was deeply moved by this exploration of maternal grief.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
4.5 rounded up because I can't justify not giving this one 5 stars.
People often like to point out how much progress society has made in terms of acceptance of the LGBT community. "Everyone is gay now!" "Why do they have to force these characters everywhere?" And it's true, that we've got gay characters on prime time television, and romance novels galore, but there's still a lot of catching up to do. I've been reading queer literature for fifteen years now, and once you tire of the "meet cutes" and the devastating coming of age stories, the flood of books slows to a trickle.
Anna Goldreich's The Leveret tells the story of two women coming to terms with losing their baby girl to a miscarriage, with alternating points of view between Claire, whose grief has become an all-consuming state of being, and Phoebe, who feels like she has lost not just a child, but also her partner and her relationship. When Claire finds a baby leveret and begins treating her like the daughter she's lost, her grip on reality slips further away.
It's a heartbreaking story. Claire's grief is so convincingly written that I often felt I had to put the book down to process, and yet I could not stop reading, and consumed the entire book over a single weekend. When Phoebe narrates, it is glaringly obvious that Claire is slowly going insane, and yet when Claire speaks it feels impossible to see things any other way. Goldreich makes Claire's pain a physical thing; "she was so angry, and I might have been angry too, but there was nowhere to put it". In fact, on every page, Goldreich's choice of words is exquisite. "And in a panic I lied, told her we were on our way, but she knew I had lied because she called me on the landline."
The Leveret captures an experience that has been told a thousand times before, but rarely, if ever, about a same-sex couple. It's just a drop in the ocean of stories waiting to be told about people who have really just begun to have their stories told, but little drops of water make the mighty ocean.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
People often like to point out how much progress society has made in terms of acceptance of the LGBT community. "Everyone is gay now!" "Why do they have to force these characters everywhere?" And it's true, that we've got gay characters on prime time television, and romance novels galore, but there's still a lot of catching up to do. I've been reading queer literature for fifteen years now, and once you tire of the "meet cutes" and the devastating coming of age stories, the flood of books slows to a trickle.
Anna Goldreich's The Leveret tells the story of two women coming to terms with losing their baby girl to a miscarriage, with alternating points of view between Claire, whose grief has become an all-consuming state of being, and Phoebe, who feels like she has lost not just a child, but also her partner and her relationship. When Claire finds a baby leveret and begins treating her like the daughter she's lost, her grip on reality slips further away.
It's a heartbreaking story. Claire's grief is so convincingly written that I often felt I had to put the book down to process, and yet I could not stop reading, and consumed the entire book over a single weekend. When Phoebe narrates, it is glaringly obvious that Claire is slowly going insane, and yet when Claire speaks it feels impossible to see things any other way. Goldreich makes Claire's pain a physical thing; "she was so angry, and I might have been angry too, but there was nowhere to put it". In fact, on every page, Goldreich's choice of words is exquisite. "And in a panic I lied, told her we were on our way, but she knew I had lied because she called me on the landline."
The Leveret captures an experience that has been told a thousand times before, but rarely, if ever, about a same-sex couple. It's just a drop in the ocean of stories waiting to be told about people who have really just begun to have their stories told, but little drops of water make the mighty ocean.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I understand the intention: to show grief at its most consuming, its most irrational. But I was never quite able to suspend my disbelief enough to go with it. Instead of feeling immersed, I felt pushed out, watching it become more extreme rather than more affecting.
We follow Clare and Phoebe, a couple trying for a baby and losing it, over and over again. After a final loss — even after carrying to full term — their shared grief fractures in two: Phoebe, trying to piece herself back together in quiet, deliberate ways, and Clare, who seems to unravel entirely under the weight of it.
I found myself clinging to Phoebe’s chapters for dear life, if only for a sense of clarity. In theory, the dual perspective offers two ways of understanding loss — one grounded, one all-consuming — but in practice, Clare’s chapters became increasingly difficult to sit with.
When Clare discovers a dead badger and begins to map it onto her loss, it’s unsettling but still (somewhat) controlled. Not long after, she finds the leveret, and begins to treat it as a surrogate for the child she never had — quite literally breastfeeding it. From there, her voice fragments, each line slipping further into something disjointed and, at times, borderline nonsensical.
I can see the comparison to Julia Armfield, and I’d tentatively recommend it to readers who enjoy that kind of surreal, body-focused writing — but with a fair warning. This leans heavily into excess, and for me, it tipped too far into madness to be fully convincing.
We follow Clare and Phoebe, a couple trying for a baby and losing it, over and over again. After a final loss — even after carrying to full term — their shared grief fractures in two: Phoebe, trying to piece herself back together in quiet, deliberate ways, and Clare, who seems to unravel entirely under the weight of it.
I found myself clinging to Phoebe’s chapters for dear life, if only for a sense of clarity. In theory, the dual perspective offers two ways of understanding loss — one grounded, one all-consuming — but in practice, Clare’s chapters became increasingly difficult to sit with.
When Clare discovers a dead badger and begins to map it onto her loss, it’s unsettling but still (somewhat) controlled. Not long after, she finds the leveret, and begins to treat it as a surrogate for the child she never had — quite literally breastfeeding it. From there, her voice fragments, each line slipping further into something disjointed and, at times, borderline nonsensical.
I can see the comparison to Julia Armfield, and I’d tentatively recommend it to readers who enjoy that kind of surreal, body-focused writing — but with a fair warning. This leans heavily into excess, and for me, it tipped too far into madness to be fully convincing.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
3.5 stars rounded up.
A grieving couple move to the countryside to heal, but begin to spiral and drift further apart after the discovery of a leveret.
This was tremendously raw and very poetic in its delivery. Clare’s POV in particular was almost overwhelming with her pain and delusion. It was almost a relief to return to Phoebe, who was also just trying to survive.
The idea of the leveret was unique and at times uncomfortable to sit with. Clare’s mental state was laid fully bare, her grief given a physical form. Even so, I struggled with her. Something about her just didn’t resonate with me. Where I expected to feel sympathy and understanding, I felt mostly nothing, or at times a growing mild annoyance. I can understand why, but her behaviour felt too strange and excessive at times.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review
A grieving couple move to the countryside to heal, but begin to spiral and drift further apart after the discovery of a leveret.
This was tremendously raw and very poetic in its delivery. Clare’s POV in particular was almost overwhelming with her pain and delusion. It was almost a relief to return to Phoebe, who was also just trying to survive.
The idea of the leveret was unique and at times uncomfortable to sit with. Clare’s mental state was laid fully bare, her grief given a physical form. Even so, I struggled with her. Something about her just didn’t resonate with me. Where I expected to feel sympathy and understanding, I felt mostly nothing, or at times a growing mild annoyance. I can understand why, but her behaviour felt too strange and excessive at times.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Leveret follows Phoebe and Clare as they move to the countryside after the loss of their baby. Stylistically I like how this book is written, however saying this it did take me a while to get into the flow of it. Cutting between both characters perspectives, you get an interesting insight to how each of them are dealing with their grief and readjusting to life as they know it. Tensions change when Clare finds Isla, a leveret, on a walk one day and decides to bring it up as her own. I think it was a fascinating exploration of grief and enjoyed the character development throughout. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for access to this book.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I reaaaally loved this! The Leveret follows a lesbian couple, Clare and Phoebe, who relocate to the countryside after suffering the loss of their baby girl.
It has such eerie and immersive prose. We get both Clare and Phoebe's POVs, and it was so interesting to flip between their individual perspectives on how they’re both processing grief, adjusting to their new environment while rebuilding their relationship and the introduction of Isla, a leveret Clare finds on a walk and wants to care for.
A stunning debut. Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for an early review copy!
It has such eerie and immersive prose. We get both Clare and Phoebe's POVs, and it was so interesting to flip between their individual perspectives on how they’re both processing grief, adjusting to their new environment while rebuilding their relationship and the introduction of Isla, a leveret Clare finds on a walk and wants to care for.
A stunning debut. Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for an early review copy!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Started off slowly, it almost felt like every sentence was trying to be too profound, but the second half ended up being lovely. The leveret as a personification of Clare’s grief was a super interesting take, and I liked seeing Phoebe’s grief alongside hers especially as it was easy to be drawn into Clare’s line of thinking. One to look out for come June!!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews