‘Arnott’s style has tempered into something rich and singing…[His] writing of the natural world is elegiac and elemental…[Limberlost has] a breathtakingly moving final scene.’ - Guardian
‘Limberlost is an immersive experience, a story that is deeply embedded in the language of its environment…Though Arnott has cast fabulism aside, [this novel] retains a mythic quality…Scaled right down to a single, humble life, Limberlost is lit up by the energy of that life’s relationships. It serves as a reminder of the complicated position humans occupy, tangled as we are in the webs of interdependence, of pain and responsibility and care, that bind us to a world much greater than ourselves.’ - Australian Book Review
"An exquisitely moving and intimate story that is more rooted in realism than Arnott’s previous works, but still carries the wonder and subtle magic his writing is known for…Arnott masterfully explores masculinity, brotherhood and familial love…Limberlost is another astonishing book from one of Australia’s most electrifying young authors." - Books+Publishing
"A storyteller whose tales always tremble on the edge of the mythic and legendary... He writes beautifully." - Thomas Keneally, author of The Dickens Boy
"Daring, atmospheric…The novel moves at a quicksilver pace, shimmering with menace and electric visions of forests and lake-filled valleys." - New York Times on The Rain Heron
"Arnott’s eco-fable, set in a politically broken near future, explores the constant push-pull that exists between our capacity for enchantment and our need to exploit what we find…It’s sad and satisfying." - The Times on The Rain Heron
"A dazzlingly visual novel…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…It’s a powerful story, beautifully rendered…The Rain Heron is a new story about learning to heed the old stories." - Los Angeles Review of Books on The Rain Heron
"Arnott’s writing is clear and compelling, particularly in descriptions of the folkloric bird, with its rain-smeared transparency'." - New Yorker on The Rain Heron
"Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s visceral The Road, an air of savage solitude infuses Arnott’s lyrically atmospheric post-apocalyptic novel, where trauma and resilience are connected to memory and the loss of both self and surroundings." - Booklist on The Rain Heron
"Vibrant and violent…Arnott fascinates with fable-like stories and thoughtful meditations…Beautiful imagery and magical moments." - Publishers Weekly on The Rain Heron
"Superb descriptions of nature and weather, of human emotion and animal instinct…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 on The Rain Heron
"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 Annihilation, on The Rain Heron
