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.

"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

"A time-bending tale populated by specters and Nazi planes." --The New York Times, "The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026"

"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)

"If you read books for a living, the calling probably started with a moment of utter entrancement: a novel you couldn't bear to set down ... such books are rarer these days, but they do still happen ... Nonesuch does the trick ... This novel deserves to be a colossal success."
--The Spectator

"Brilliantly brought to life by a literary magician, who ends with a plot twist equivalent to making someone disappear ... all Spufford has to do now is repeat the same trick, just as well." --The Telegraph

"The sheer scale of Spufford's imagination allows for some truly cinematic set pieces. As much as I loved the spectacle--which at one point has Iris hundreds of feet in the sky as German bombers hammer London--it's the authentic moments, grounded in history, that hit home." --Locus Magazine

"A lavish historical fantasy of a secretary and her lover battling time-traveling fascists on the eve of WWII... Spufford sustains the tension all the way to the miraculous finale. Readers will be enthralled." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Equal parts stunning historical fiction and daring fantasy, Nonesuch is a remarkable journey into the imagination of a brilliant writer." --BookPage, Starred Review

"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)

"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

Publisher: Scribner Book Company

Pub date: 2026-03-10

Length: 496 pages