'A compelling fable of decline, a lament for a way of life, and a warning about what society is already becoming. It is a capsule of England and its dystopian present ... as sad and angry as it is memorable' Rónán Hession
'Salt Lick is that rare beast – imaginative, risky storytelling where every sentence is a gift' Heidi James
Britain is awash, the sea creeps into the land, brambles and forest swamp derelict towns. Food production has moved overseas and people are forced to move to the cities for work. The countryside is empty. A chorus, the herd voice of feral cows, wander this newly wild land watching over changing times, speaking with love and exasperation.
Jesse and his puppy Mister Maliks roam the woods until his family are forced to leave for London. Lee runs from the terrible restrictions of the White Town where he grew up. Isolde leaves London on foot, walking the abandoned A12 in search of the truth about her mother.
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Lulu Allison
Lulu Allison grew up in a small village in the Chilterns. She did an illustration degree at St Martin’s School of Art and a fine-art M.A at the University of Brighton, where she still lives. She has exhibited in group and solo shows, worked as a gallery educator and arts facilitator. Her art practice consisted predominantly of site-specific installation and lens-based work. She has also worked as a cleaner, an art teacher, a scuba-diving instructor, and a maker of spectacle hinges in a small factory in Munich.
She came to writing accidentally whilst undertaking what she thought was an art project, unexpectedly discovering what she should have been doing all along. That art project became her first novel, Twice the Speed of Dark, published by Unbound in 2017. Salt Lick is her second novel, and she is working on a third, inspired by the Thomas Mann novel, Doctor Faustus. Its current title is The Model Village, an Opera in Three Acts.
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8th February 2022Films for Salt Lick - can you help?
Hello All
I have had an idea to help share Salt Lick with a wider readership and am asking for a moment of your time.
Would you be willing to film or record yourself, just on a phone, reading a few sentences that you like from Salt Lick, then explain, in a few words, what it is you enjoyed about the book, or what drew you to the excerpt you chose?
I will then make little films…
14th November 2021The Review Hustle Shuffle
Thank you for backing Salt Lick and making it a reality.
I'm so pleased with the early reviews and would love it if you could add to them:
John Mitchinson, the head of Unbound, tweeted that 'Salt Lick is one of the most original and beautifully written novels Unbound have published'.
Debbie Walsh said on Goodreads ‘One of the best novels I've read in a long time, and impossible to put down…
11th September 2021Invitation reminder.
Less than a week to publication! Please join me for the online launch of Salt Lick, on publication day, 16 September, 7.30 pm. There will be a chance to ask questions, book giveaways, and a bit of book chat. All are welcome, and I'd love to see you. Just register using the button link below.
At last something that began years ago, with a song about wild animals in a shopping mall and the idea of a man in prison imagining the inside of his body as a landscape of retreat, has become a book.
Many of you have helped Salt Lick come…
5th August 2021Pledge rewards are on their way
As the publication of Salt Lick gets nearer, I have been working on the fulfilment of pledges. Thank you to all who pledged at every level. You will get your books separately and I hope to have all of the physical rewards posted before the book is published on September 16th.
First batch to be sent out will be the wish cows. They are made from recycled aluminium and board, with gilded horns and…
18th July 2021Pledge Rewards Coming to Life!
Quick announcement - If you are part of a book group and would like to know about a lovely special offer I have, drop me a line here!
I have started making pledge rewards to send out to all of you lovely people who backed Salt Lick. Yesterday was a day of lino cutting and printing and I'm very happy with the results - 2 out of 5 cards ready to go.
The theme was cows, as stated on the Unbound…
14th May 2021Update on publication of Salt Lick
It’s been a while since I had anything to report on Salt Lick. This is because there was a mix up with the copy edit which has taken a chunk of time to put right. It will mean that Salt Lick will be published later than planned, but I am happy to say that Unbound have taken their usual care to ensure that when it is published, it is in the best shape possible.
Work on the cover is almost done and…
16th November 2020Time to Edit Salt Lick
Dear Backers of Salt Lick
I am pleased to say that Salt Lick has come back from the editor with some fantastic comments and, as your backing has made this book a joint venture, I wanted to share some of them with you:
"My overall impression is that this an extremely accomplished piece of work, written with the skill of a poet and the imagination of Sarah Moss or Andrew Michael Hurley. It…
21st May 2020The Cow Chorus is ready to roll.
I am so delighted that Salt Lick is funded. I am thankful to many people and have been blown away by the support. Thank you. I hope that I can do it justice, that you will come to feel proud of having your names listed in the book as a supporter and that you will enjoy reading Satl Lick when you get your copy. (There is still time to add yourself to that list if you would like to.)
I have a…
27th April 2020Newsletter
Folks, if any of you would like to sign up to an irregular, occasional newsletter that comes direct, please take a look at the kind of thing I send out here:
You can sign up at the bottom of the form. I will be sending out free short stories to subscribers soon.
Thank you for your support of Salt Lick, it really…
6th April 2020The Magic Bundle - New Pledge Level and other news.
I am thrilled to be able to offer a new pledge level to back Salt Lick that includes these utterly beautiful and very appropriate cow rings made by one of my favourits artist/jewellers Frances Boyle. I already have one of my own given to me at Christmas, it feels like my good luck charm. And now I have secured the last three to offer as pledge rewards. In the bundle are some hand-printed cow cards…
28th March 2020All still here - apart and together
Hello friends.
It's time to pop my head, however tentatively, back over the parapet. And I am very happy to say that I have a piece published today on the Memoirist site. It's about my grandfather, pictured above, and the strange uncertainty when this irrascible, bold and imposing man became more gentle and lost. I hope you may enjoy reading it. There are lots of great essays on the site,…
17th February 2020Other Unbounders #1 - Tom Ward
“What I love most is the idea that leaving London to go into the countryside seems like stepping beyond the barriers, into this quasi-dangerous world.” - Tom Ward.
Tom Ward is the author of The Lion and the Unicorn, one of the Unbound projects I was delighted to support with a pledge. Tom noticed that our two books have some similar themes, as can be seen from the quote above, so we decided…
31st January 2020Booty for backers
I am delighted that Salt Lick is now 1/3 funded. To clebetrate I've given all backers 1/3 off everything in my Etsy shop Seventy Seven Seas. If you'd like to benefit from this offer, just pledge for Salt Lick before Monday when the offer expires.
Seventy Seven Seas is full of icons, household gods, charms and curious anatomies. Everything is hand made from recycled or waste materials. And…
21st January 2020Thank yous
I have just sent out thank you messages to all those I can reach who have backed Salt Lick. The response has been so good and I am really delighted so wanted to convey that to all of you who made it happen.
I don't have a way to directly contact everyone so here are the last ones to round it off! You are welcome to contact me so that I have your email or Twitter handle, but of course, Unbound don…
16th January 2020Salt Lick is on the Starting Blocks
Hello everyone
Welcome to the page for Salt Lick. I’m delighted that Unbound have agreed to publish my second book and look forward to making lots of new connections with readers on the way.
To help you get to know the book here are ten things about it.
1. The first spark was an image of a man in prison thinking about the inside of his body.
