This captivating literary debut and an epic love story for our times takes place over seven days as a woman wrestles with a marriage proposal and what it means for her personal and creative freedom.

She’s a waitress. He’s a chef. They used to be best friends, but now, they’re in love. She’s also a selkie, a siren, Odysseus, Persephone, Helen of Troy, a Tudor queen, and a cowgirl called Quick Fingers. He’s a really good man.

When he asks her to marry him, Hero panics. She may be a lot of things but the one thing she doesn’t want to be is anybody’s wife. He gives her one week to decide, so to gather her thoughts, she begins to write him a letter. It is both the story of how they fell in love, and of who she is, and why marriage fills her with equal parts delight and terror.

Drawing on a rich history of myth and legend, and yet unmistakably of the moment, Hero is a love story about what it means for women to be supporting characters in a world written by men. How can you be yourself when you are a product of other people’s imaginations? How can you love another person and be free?

Katie Buckley was born in Cornwall and spent her childhood in Canada and the UK. She now lives in London. She was a London Library Emerging Writer 2021–2022. Hero is her first novel.