Overview

A spellbinding tale about an ambitious young woman who must thwart an occult plot by time-traveling fascists during the chaos of the London Blitz--from ""one of our most powerful writers of wayward historical fiction"" (The Washington Post). Following the acclaim of his previous novels Golden Hill and Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford delivers a masterpiece of literary fantasy, hailed by Joe Hill as ""a book that scoops up all the wonder and hope and pleasure of the Narnia novels, and pours it into a story for grown-ups."" It's the summer of 1939, and the air in London is thick with the tension of impending war. Iris Hawkins, a fiery young financial secretary, has a chance encounter with Geoff, a genius engineer from the new technology of television. What was supposed to be one night of abandon draws her instead into a nightmare of otherworldly pursuit--into a reality where time bends, spirits can be summoned, and history hangs by a thread. Soon there are Nazi planes droning overhead. In a time when death falls randomly from above each night, when the streets are darker than the wildest forest and all the men are away in uniform, the defense of the city is in the hands of its women. But Iris has more to contend with than just the terrors of the Blitz. Over the rooftops of burning London, in the twisted passages between past and present, through the vast night sky and across the tiny screens of early television, a fascist fanatic is travelling with a gun in her hand, and only Iris can stop her from altering the course of history forever. Both a thrilling page-turner and a profound exploration of ambition, love, and the fight against tyranny, Nonesuch is a story that is as enchanting as it is urgent. Packed with twists, tension, and wonder, it is a triumph of storytelling.

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9781668214374

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Reviews

""Nonesuch salts actual history with the conventions of the fantastic in a way that thrills me, but by now that feels like a trademark of Spufford's writing. Here are the most interesting (and terrifying angels) since Madeline L'Engle, and the human characters, too, are so full of life and feeling they practically set fire to the pages as you turn them."" --Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Book of Love ""A gripping, otherworldly adventure set during the London Blitz. . . . Nonesuch is a rollicking read. Superbly plotted, it thunders along at breakneck speed until the gasp-inducing, heartbreaking final twist. "" --The Bookseller (UK) ""What a joy! Bejewelled with dazzling prose, propulsive as a rocket, mandala-complex in its worldbuilding, and corkscrewing jubilantly through fantasy, history, romance, occultism, adventure, and the wartime Stock Exchange, Nonesuch is a novel with endless ingenuity and an enormous heart."" --Kaliane Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of The Ministry of Time ""I feel like I've been waiting all my adult life for Nonesuch to come along: a book that scoops up all the wonder and hope and pleasure of the Narnia novels, and pours it into a story for grown-up. The book itself is a kind of enchantment, as powerful as any of the great and harrowing spells cast within its pages, and I was entirely ensorcelled. You simply. Must. Read. This. Book."" --Joe Hill

""Spufford's novels hit the sweet spot between literary brilliance and hopelessly addictive."" --Mail on Sunday ""Pulls no punches in its exploration of the particular character of British fascism . . . Nonesuch is more of a genre-defying, time-and-space-bending experience rather than a novel: at once historical and extremely timely for our current political climate."" --Dazed Digital ""A time-bending tale populated by specters and Nazi planes."" --The New York Times, ""The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026"" ""Superb . . . It's His Dark Materials meets the ?blitz: the deep satisfactions of children's literature reclaimed for adults who still want stories in which the world is wondrous."" --Observer (UK) ""The balance of historical realism and fantasy is handled with a degree of mastery and attention to detail that is far more convincing than it probably ought to be--and that suggests further complications to come."" --Locus ""Nonesuch salts actual history with the conventions of the fantastic in a way that thrills me, but by now that feels like a trademark of Spufford's writing. Here are the most interesting (and terrifying angels) since Madeline L'Engle, and the human characters, too, are so full of life and feeling they practically set fire to the pages as you turn them."" --Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Book of Love ""A gripping, otherworldly adventure set during the London Blitz. . . . Nonesuch is a rollicking read. Superbly plotted, it thunders along at breakneck speed until the gasp-inducing, heartbreaking final twist. "" --The Bookseller (UK) ""What a joy! Bejewelled with dazzling prose, propulsive as a rocket, mandala-complex in its worldbuilding, and corkscrewing jubilantly through fantasy, history, romance, occultism, adventure, and the wartime Stock Exchange, Nonesuch is a novel with endless ingenuity and an enormous heart."" --Kaliane Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of The Ministry of Time ""I feel like I've been waiting all my adult life for Nonesuch to come along: a book that scoops up all the wonder and hope and pleasure of the Narnia novels, and pours it into a story for grown-up. The book itself is a kind of enchantment, as powerful as any of the great and harrowing spells cast within its pages, and I was entirely ensorcelled. You simply. Must. Read. This. Book."" --Joe Hill

""I feel like I've been waiting all my adult life for Nonesuch to come along: a book that scoops up all the wonder and hope and pleasure of the Narnia novels, and pours it into a story for grown-up. The book itself is a kind of enchantment, as powerful as any of the great and harrowing spells cast within its pages, and I was entirely ensorcelled. You simply. Must. Read. This. Book."" --Joe Hill

Author Information

Francis Spufford began as the author of four highly praised books of nonfiction. His first book, I May Be Some Time, won the Writers Guild Award for Best Nonfiction Book of 1996, the Banff Mountain Book Prize, and a Somerset Maugham Award. It was followed by The Child That Books Built, Backroom Boys, and most recently, Unapologetic. But with Red Plenty in 2012 he switched to the novel. Golden Hill won multiple literary prizes on both sides of the Atlantic; Light Perpetual was longlisted for the Booker Prize; and Cahokia Jazz was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. In England, he is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

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