Desert Of The Heart

Authors: Jane Rule & Jackie Kay

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 22^nd January 2026 by Little, Brown Book Group (Virago Press Ltd) in the United Kingdom as part of the 'Virago Modern Classics' series.

Paperback / softback | 256 pages
196mm x 126mm | 200g

This was the freedom she wanted, an animal freedom exposed to the emptiness of sky and land and water. As she stepped forward, Ann flipped into the water and was gone.

Evelyn Hall, running from her disastrous marriage of sixteen years, arrives in the neon-lit desert heat of 1950s Reno - the only place in America where she can apply for a quick divorce. Arriving at her guesthouse she meets free-spirited Ann Childs, a casino 'change girl' fifteen years her junior. Overwhelmed by both the vast, lonely beauty of the Nevada desert and her magnetic attraction to Ann, Evelyn must gamble all her own certainties and conventions to win a new kind of freedom.

Bold, witty and shimmering with desire, this groundbreaking 60s novel is an unforgettable queer classic.

INTRODUCED BY JACKIE KAY'An undisputed lesbian classic' SARAH WATERS'Intelligent and utterly believable' JOYCE CAROL OATES 'Brave, bold and brilliant' JACKIE KAY