Will I love Nonesuch?

This novel blends genres in a masterful way.

It’s magical realism, romance, fantasy, horror, and action-adventure. And none of the genres is given short shrift. Again, a magical society threatens the world as we know it, as well as the main character. The main character, a flawed human being, learns her own worth, rises above her limitations, and finds the courage to act. And to love. 

I found this novel to be rich in ideas, a wonderful insight into the early days of WWII in London, full of delightfully quirky characters, truly scary in a real-stakes way (not the cheap-scare… show more.

Set during the London Blitz in the early years of World War II, this gripping speculative novel has it all: vivid characters, a page-turning plot, and many pages of fluid, dynamic, and consistently beautiful sentence-level prose.

Spufford is a gorgeous sentence-writer, his characters are fascinating, and page by page, the story is consistently immersive, subtle, and beautiful.

Like other British writers writing on the edge of the fantastic and the literary, like Susanna Clarke, David Mitchell, and Ian McEwan, Spufford is one of those writers whose work readers tend to seek out. Once you’ve read one of his books, you’ll… show more.