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Nonesuch
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.
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.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published February 26, 2026
386 people are currently reading
13159 people want to read
About the author
Francis Spufford
20 books855 followersOfficially, I was a writer of non-fiction for the first half of my career, and I certainly enjoyed scraping up against the stubborn, resistant, endlessly interesting surface of the real world. I like awkwardness, things that don't fit, things that put up a struggle against being described. But when I was excited by what I was writing about, what I wanted to do with my excitement was always to tell a story. So every one of my non-fiction books borrowed techniques from the novel, and contained sections where I came close to behaving like a novelist. The chapter retelling the story of Captain Scott's last Antarctic expedition at the end of "I May Be Some Time", for example, or the thirty-page version of the gospel story in "Unapologetic". It wasn't a total surprise that in 2010 I published a book, "Red Plenty", which was a cross between fiction and documentary, or that afterwards I completed my crabwise crawl towards the novel with the honest-to-goodness entirely-made-up "Golden Hill". This was a historical novel about eighteenth century New York written like, well, an actual eighteenth century novel: hyperactive, stuffed with incident, and not very bothered about genre or good taste. It was elaborate, though. It was about exceptional events, and huge amounts of money, and good-looking people talking extravagantly in a special place. Nothing wrong with any of that: I'm an Aaron Sorkin fan and a Joss Whedon fan, keen on dialogue that whooshes around like a firework display. But those were the ingredients of romance, and there were other interesting things to tell stories about, so my next novel "Light Perpetual" in 2021 was deliberately plainer, about the lives that five London children might have had if they hadn't been killed in 1944 by a German rocket. Ordinary lives, in theory; except that there are no ordinary lives, if you look closely enough. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Then in 2023 I returned to strong forms of story, and to plotting more like "Golden Hill", with a noir crime novel called "Cahokia Jazz", set in the 1922 of a different timeline, where a metropolis full of Native Americans stood on the banks of the Mississippi. I was aiming for something like a classic black and white movie, except one you never saw, because it came from another history than our own. It won the Sidewise Award for alternate history. And now (2025/6) I've written a historical fantasy, "Nonesuch", set during the London Blitz, where as well as German bombs the protagonist Iris needs to deal with time-travelling fascists, and the remnants of Renaissance magic, preserved in the statues of the burning city. As writers of fantasy, I like C S Lewis, Ursula Le Guin, John Crowley, Tamsyn Muir, Guy Gavriel Kay, Katherine Addison. If you like them, you may like this.
Biography: I was born in 1964, the child of two historians. I'm married to the Dean of an Anglican cathedral in eastern England, I have two daughters, and I teach writing at Goldsmiths College, London.
Biography: I was born in 1964, the child of two historians. I'm married to the Dean of an Anglican cathedral in eastern England, I have two daughters, and I teach writing at Goldsmiths College, London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
January 31, 2026
On my blog.
Galley provided by publisher
It has been 96 days between my finishing Nonesuch and coming to review it. Ninety-six days in which it has become no clearer just how I am to write a review that can do this book justice. But, let me try.
Nonesuch was, by far and away, the best book I read in 2025. Admittedly, last year was uncommonly sparse in 5 star reads for me, but even so Nonesuch stood out. This was not a surprise: ever since I read Golden Hill a few years back, Francis Spufford has been on my list of favourite authors. I knew, from the very first page, that it would be incredible.
When I first picked up a Spufford novel, what immediately stuck out for me was the prose. A lot of prose feels like it’s striving for invisibility these days, but Spufford’s feels like each individual word is carefully selected, though in such a way that it neither feels too purple or overwrought. Instead, each little bit of description gives you a thrill, being distinctive and yet incredibly apt, observations which are memorable and also immersive.
Because Spufford’s prose is very good at transporting you to, in this case, 1940s London during the Blitz. Very rarely have I read an author who is quite so skilled at conjuring setting like Spufford can. There are certain scenes of this book that I can still viscerally recall even months later (and here I must confess to (usually!) a very poor memory for books, particularly when I’ve read several more in the meantime), from the creeping unease that follows Iris early on, to the gutpunch of an ending: I would go so far as to call this book unforgettable.
That’s also down to the central characters of this one. Iris and Geoff are both individually compelling, and even more so together. I’m not sure how much I want to say about this one, because I think this is a book that the less you know about it going in, the better, but I think it’s further proof to me that the most capital-r Romantic and compelling romances are in books which are not primarily romance novels. I have been thinking about Iris and Geoff on and off for ninety-six days since finishing this one. I have pointedly not been thinking about how long I have to wait for a resolution to their story.
All of which is, in a very un-justice-doing way, to say that if there is any 2026 release you pick up this year, it should be Nonesuch. If there’s any 2026 release you pick up in any other year, it should be Nonesuch. If you pick up only one other book in your life ever again, it should be Nonesuch. Just. Read Nonesuch.
Galley provided by publisher
It has been 96 days between my finishing Nonesuch and coming to review it. Ninety-six days in which it has become no clearer just how I am to write a review that can do this book justice. But, let me try.
Nonesuch was, by far and away, the best book I read in 2025. Admittedly, last year was uncommonly sparse in 5 star reads for me, but even so Nonesuch stood out. This was not a surprise: ever since I read Golden Hill a few years back, Francis Spufford has been on my list of favourite authors. I knew, from the very first page, that it would be incredible.
When I first picked up a Spufford novel, what immediately stuck out for me was the prose. A lot of prose feels like it’s striving for invisibility these days, but Spufford’s feels like each individual word is carefully selected, though in such a way that it neither feels too purple or overwrought. Instead, each little bit of description gives you a thrill, being distinctive and yet incredibly apt, observations which are memorable and also immersive.
Because Spufford’s prose is very good at transporting you to, in this case, 1940s London during the Blitz. Very rarely have I read an author who is quite so skilled at conjuring setting like Spufford can. There are certain scenes of this book that I can still viscerally recall even months later (and here I must confess to (usually!) a very poor memory for books, particularly when I’ve read several more in the meantime), from the creeping unease that follows Iris early on, to the gutpunch of an ending: I would go so far as to call this book unforgettable.
That’s also down to the central characters of this one. Iris and Geoff are both individually compelling, and even more so together. I’m not sure how much I want to say about this one, because I think this is a book that the less you know about it going in, the better, but I think it’s further proof to me that the most capital-r Romantic and compelling romances are in books which are not primarily romance novels. I have been thinking about Iris and Geoff on and off for ninety-six days since finishing this one. I have pointedly not been thinking about how long I have to wait for a resolution to their story.
All of which is, in a very un-justice-doing way, to say that if there is any 2026 release you pick up this year, it should be Nonesuch. If there’s any 2026 release you pick up in any other year, it should be Nonesuch. If you pick up only one other book in your life ever again, it should be Nonesuch. Just. Read Nonesuch.
October 27, 2025
spectacular. i would like 50 more immediately. i know this is the randomest comparison of all time but: made me feel how i felt when i first finished ninth house
February 28, 2026
I am clearly an outlier here, judging by the rapturous reviews. I was also an outlier on Light Perpetual, so perhaps Francis Spufford simply isn’t an author for me.
Nonesuch is set during the Blitz in south London and follows a small group of characters whose lives intersect under bombardment — ordinary people trying to carry on amid rubble, fear and rationing. Into this very grounded, vividly rendered wartime setting Spufford introduces angels and demons, engaged in a metaphysical struggle that overlays the human one. The novel moves between the practical business of survival — wardens, shelters, damaged houses — and the unseen supernatural conflict shaping events.
The description of the Blitz is superb. The sense of place, the smoke and dust, the brittle stoicism, the strange normality of catastrophe — all of that feels carefully observed and convincing. Spufford can paint a street, a sky, a shattered building with real authority. Those sections are immersive and often deeply affecting.
Where it lost me was with the angels and demons. I understand what he was doing — raising the moral and spiritual stakes, suggesting that history is more than random destruction — but I found those passages overlong and heavy. The metaphysical debates felt laboured, and the novel began to sprawl. Just as I was hoping for resolution, we’re left on something of a cliff hanger, which, after the length and density of what precedes it, felt more wearying than intriguing.
Given how much others have loved it, I suspect this is very much a case of an issue in the part of the reader….which is so frustrating.
Nonesuch is set during the Blitz in south London and follows a small group of characters whose lives intersect under bombardment — ordinary people trying to carry on amid rubble, fear and rationing. Into this very grounded, vividly rendered wartime setting Spufford introduces angels and demons, engaged in a metaphysical struggle that overlays the human one. The novel moves between the practical business of survival — wardens, shelters, damaged houses — and the unseen supernatural conflict shaping events.
The description of the Blitz is superb. The sense of place, the smoke and dust, the brittle stoicism, the strange normality of catastrophe — all of that feels carefully observed and convincing. Spufford can paint a street, a sky, a shattered building with real authority. Those sections are immersive and often deeply affecting.
Where it lost me was with the angels and demons. I understand what he was doing — raising the moral and spiritual stakes, suggesting that history is more than random destruction — but I found those passages overlong and heavy. The metaphysical debates felt laboured, and the novel began to sprawl. Just as I was hoping for resolution, we’re left on something of a cliff hanger, which, after the length and density of what precedes it, felt more wearying than intriguing.
Given how much others have loved it, I suspect this is very much a case of an issue in the part of the reader….which is so frustrating.
March 9, 2026
This is a remarkable book. Set in London from the beginning of the Second World War and into the blitz, it could work well as a straight novel detailing a young woman's attempts to find a place for herself in the chauvinist world of finance against the backdrop of an experience that left a mostly female staff exhausted from lack of sleep and fear. Yet, that's just the backdrop for an effective urban fantasy.
It seems an ancient order had managed in the seventeenth century to find a way to change history from a location outside of normal time and space, known as Nonesuch. The order had become a shadow of its former self - except a young upper class Nazi, Lall, is determined to recreate the bridge to Nonesuch for her own nefarious ends.
Set against Lall is central character Iris - the young woman attempting to make her way in the world of finance. To be honest, initially Iris is extremely self-centred, not caring much about anyone else. But she discovers her humanity thanks to meeting Geoff, an engineer with the new television service, and his eccentric father. She also is intensely analytic, seeming to think through in extraordinary detail activities that most would barely bother to think about. All in all, a notable character, and far more rounded than her slightly two-dimensional petite blonde Nazi arch-enemy.
It's a beautiful read, both for its vivid portrayal of life in wartime London and in the cleverly developed fantasy element. I particularly loved Francis Spufford's irritable quantum angels. My only criticism is that the writing feels over-descriptive - it could have been tightened up a bit, which would have helped what is a slightly overlong volume. Admittedly we get a flash forward opener to introduce the fantasy element, but it takes an awful long time before we get into gear on the main theme.
However, I would forgive this book a lot (including the ending, with which I wasn't entirely happy), both for its atmospheric power and the wonderfully visualised fantasy. The blurb describes it as 'spellbinding', and it is, both metaphorically and literally. Recommended.
It seems an ancient order had managed in the seventeenth century to find a way to change history from a location outside of normal time and space, known as Nonesuch. The order had become a shadow of its former self - except a young upper class Nazi, Lall, is determined to recreate the bridge to Nonesuch for her own nefarious ends.
Set against Lall is central character Iris - the young woman attempting to make her way in the world of finance. To be honest, initially Iris is extremely self-centred, not caring much about anyone else. But she discovers her humanity thanks to meeting Geoff, an engineer with the new television service, and his eccentric father. She also is intensely analytic, seeming to think through in extraordinary detail activities that most would barely bother to think about. All in all, a notable character, and far more rounded than her slightly two-dimensional petite blonde Nazi arch-enemy.
It's a beautiful read, both for its vivid portrayal of life in wartime London and in the cleverly developed fantasy element. I particularly loved Francis Spufford's irritable quantum angels. My only criticism is that the writing feels over-descriptive - it could have been tightened up a bit, which would have helped what is a slightly overlong volume. Admittedly we get a flash forward opener to introduce the fantasy element, but it takes an awful long time before we get into gear on the main theme.
However, I would forgive this book a lot (including the ending, with which I wasn't entirely happy), both for its atmospheric power and the wonderfully visualised fantasy. The blurb describes it as 'spellbinding', and it is, both metaphorically and literally. Recommended.
December 23, 2025
Speculative fiction that’s mostly a recount of women during the Blitz. Love the writing style and the characterisations, frustrated by the inevitable denouement and reveal
Read
February 28, 2026I’ve always known Spufford had an sff novelist’s heart – he’s been getting closer and closer to the genre with every novel he writes. With Nonesuch, he’s arrived. It’s his best yet, I think, an adventure through Blitz-raddled London and through time itself. Like all of my favourite secret-London novels, it relies on wonders: radio-wave angels imprisoned in the city’s statues, a sixteenth-century path to an enclave existing outside of space and time (“ye Pallace of Nonesuche”), a truly terrifying encounter with a construct that reminded me of the malevolent animated scarecrows in the Doctor Who two-parter “Human Nature”/"The Family of Blood”. The reason it’s so good, though, is the protagonist. Spufford has always been great at writing women, but here he really surpasses himself with Iris Hawkins, an ambitious secretary in a City firm. Iris wants to be rich, and she’s a social climber; her calibration of her vowels, from Watford to Chelsea, recurs regularly. She’s also got a fantastic financial mind and an endearing practicality. You know how we expect our heroines in books like this to be fascinated if they come across a wizardly cabal? Iris, refreshingly, truly couldn’t care less about the weirdos whose occult machinations have set all this in motion. Her main desires are to stay alive, to keep her lover Geoff alive, to stop a bitchy fascist from changing history so that England capitulates to the Nazis in 1939, and to find some way of balancing her fierce need for independence with the unexpected experience of falling in love. She’s a sexually active heroine without apology, but she doesn’t feel anachronistic. On the contrary, she feels unusual but not unlikely, someone who learns not to stand out but who is constantly working towards her goals, within her era’s limiting frameworks for class and sex. I suppose the combination of social-documentarian Blitz novel and metaphysical adventure story might strike other readers as incongruous, but I loved it. And while the immediate plot is resolved by the end of the novel, it ends on a literal “to be continued” that instantly creates another set of questions to be answered. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. If you’ve enjoyed Spufford’s previous work, don’t miss it. Huge thanks to Francis himself for the PDF proof; Nonesuch was published on 26 February.
March 23, 2026
London, 1939. The Blitz is coming. But Iris Hawkins has more to worry about than Nazi planes - she's stumbled into a nightmare of time travel, occult societies, and a fascist fanatic determined to alter history.
Iris is a financial secretary with a sharp head for numbers. Her unexpected relationship with Geoff, a television engineer, started as a one-night stand with someone not remotely her type - but it grew into something more as the world around them descended into chaos.
When they discover Geoff's father's occult secret society in his attic, the story requires a serious suspension of disbelief. The fantasy elements blend time travel with angels and demons - spirits trapped by the occult, warning about the war. The angels and demons were meant to mirror the chaos of war - the indiscriminate destruction, the moral stakes. I could see what Spufford was trying to do, but it didn't always land for me.
What did work: The Blitz setting was immersive. The contrast between people refusing to believe war would come and others fleeing to save themselves. The routine of taking shelter, waiting for the bombs - until they finally came. Spufford captured that tension brilliantly.
This is a lengthier book that blends historical fiction with fantasy in ambitious ways.
Audio experience: Lydia Wilson's narration sounded authentic to the 1939 timeline. She brought the era to life.
You'll love this if: You want historical fiction with fantasy elements, strong female protagonists in WWII London, and ambitious genre-blending stories.
Thanks to Scribner and Simon & Schuster Audio for the advance copies.
Iris is a financial secretary with a sharp head for numbers. Her unexpected relationship with Geoff, a television engineer, started as a one-night stand with someone not remotely her type - but it grew into something more as the world around them descended into chaos.
When they discover Geoff's father's occult secret society in his attic, the story requires a serious suspension of disbelief. The fantasy elements blend time travel with angels and demons - spirits trapped by the occult, warning about the war. The angels and demons were meant to mirror the chaos of war - the indiscriminate destruction, the moral stakes. I could see what Spufford was trying to do, but it didn't always land for me.
What did work: The Blitz setting was immersive. The contrast between people refusing to believe war would come and others fleeing to save themselves. The routine of taking shelter, waiting for the bombs - until they finally came. Spufford captured that tension brilliantly.
This is a lengthier book that blends historical fiction with fantasy in ambitious ways.
Audio experience: Lydia Wilson's narration sounded authentic to the 1939 timeline. She brought the era to life.
You'll love this if: You want historical fiction with fantasy elements, strong female protagonists in WWII London, and ambitious genre-blending stories.
Thanks to Scribner and Simon & Schuster Audio for the advance copies.
Read
October 12, 2025I ought to try to review this properly but all I really have to say is that I liked it a lot and during a pre-publication author event I went to Francis Spufford said that the fantasy fiction he was most inspired by when writing this was THE LOCKED TOMB BY TAMSYN MUIR.
March 21, 2026
The book begins with a prologue, where Iris stays after work in her office in 1940 to cast a spell that enlivens a stone statue, and she asks it "Tell me where all past years are."
After that fantasy teaser, we jump back in time to ordinary life in the 1930s leading up to the war. Iris is a woman from a lower class of English society, has been working as a secretary in a stockbrokerage, and is sexually promiscuous. She likes men and flitting between them, never settling on one. Settling on one man is a scary prospect, given that she has aspirations in the world of finance that do not mesh with being a sedate housewife.
Iris is a great character, and we see her through an omniscient lens where we know what she's thinking. She's our viewpoint character, and she is in turmoil - she meets somebody she brushes off, but then grows closer to, and it scares her.
Oh, that fantasy stuff with stone statues coming to life? That finally happens about 2/3 of the way through the book, after we are introduced to practitioners of magic. (Honestly, if I read another book that involves the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or Aleister Crowley, I'll scream.)
Iris gets crosswise with a group of British Fascists (yes, the Mosley crowd), but then an angel arrives. Literally. With a startling annunciation: Iris has to save the world's timeline by preventing the fascists from changing it to favor Nazi Germany. She needs to use the stone statues to accomplish this.
This is starting to sound too outlandish, but Spufford grounds his characters so well that you go along with it. I found the angel a bit too - quotidian? Even though he's usually a ball of light. He's very plain-spoken. Also kind of stuffy ("there are rules").
The statues, and the paths that Iris has to walk, I found intriguing. In the middle of the Blitz, Iris has to navigate a path among statues to foil the fascists. At one point she is up in the sky where the bombers are.
I haven't talked about the Blitz yet. Much of this book deals with the Blitz and its effect on London. Much of the bulk of the book is the historical fiction aspect about London during the Blitz and the gradual erosion of buildings from the landscape. Even without the fantasy element this is an engaging book about a critical time and place, with well-developed characters that you come to care about.
Since Iris works in a stockbrokerage, there's a lot about the effect on finance and the government's efforts to fund the war. (John Maynard Keynes has a cameo.) This is an unexpectedly fascinating part of the book.
Other reviewers have mentioned it, so I'll say it too: Although Iris achieves a major goal at the end, there will be a sequel; the book ends with "to be continued".
After that fantasy teaser, we jump back in time to ordinary life in the 1930s leading up to the war. Iris is a woman from a lower class of English society, has been working as a secretary in a stockbrokerage, and is sexually promiscuous. She likes men and flitting between them, never settling on one. Settling on one man is a scary prospect, given that she has aspirations in the world of finance that do not mesh with being a sedate housewife.
Iris is a great character, and we see her through an omniscient lens where we know what she's thinking. She's our viewpoint character, and she is in turmoil - she meets somebody she brushes off, but then grows closer to, and it scares her.
Oh, that fantasy stuff with stone statues coming to life? That finally happens about 2/3 of the way through the book, after we are introduced to practitioners of magic. (Honestly, if I read another book that involves the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or Aleister Crowley, I'll scream.)
Iris gets crosswise with a group of British Fascists (yes, the Mosley crowd), but then an angel arrives. Literally. With a startling annunciation: Iris has to save the world's timeline by preventing the fascists from changing it to favor Nazi Germany. She needs to use the stone statues to accomplish this.
This is starting to sound too outlandish, but Spufford grounds his characters so well that you go along with it. I found the angel a bit too - quotidian? Even though he's usually a ball of light. He's very plain-spoken. Also kind of stuffy ("there are rules").
The statues, and the paths that Iris has to walk, I found intriguing. In the middle of the Blitz, Iris has to navigate a path among statues to foil the fascists. At one point she is up in the sky where the bombers are.
I haven't talked about the Blitz yet. Much of this book deals with the Blitz and its effect on London. Much of the bulk of the book is the historical fiction aspect about London during the Blitz and the gradual erosion of buildings from the landscape. Even without the fantasy element this is an engaging book about a critical time and place, with well-developed characters that you come to care about.
Since Iris works in a stockbrokerage, there's a lot about the effect on finance and the government's efforts to fund the war. (John Maynard Keynes has a cameo.) This is an unexpectedly fascinating part of the book.
Other reviewers have mentioned it, so I'll say it too: Although Iris achieves a major goal at the end, there will be a sequel; the book ends with "to be continued".
March 20, 2026
Nonesuch – Francis Spufford
Initial Struggles
At first, this book was a struggle to get into. Spufford’s prose is unlike anything I’ve really experienced before. He leans heavily into metaphor, so much so that one metaphor often evolves into another, which then unfolds into yet another within the same train of thought.
Early on, this felt tedious. At times, it came across as over-described — a muddled jumble of words that didn’t always seem necessary. It slowed the pace and made it difficult to fully settle into the story.
However, by the end, it really came into its own. What initially felt excessive began to reveal its purpose, painting a vivid and almost surreal picture of the book’s fantastical elements. Once it clicked, the prose became a strength rather than a barrier, adding depth and atmosphere that a simpler style might not have achieved.
Characters
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its small cast of characters, all of whom feel carefully crafted and distinct. Iris, in particular, may be one of the most fully realised characters I’ve read in quite some time.
She’s deeply lovable, but also deeply flawed. Her issues feel real, uncomfortably so at times, and you can’t help but empathise with her, even when she makes decisions you don’t agree with. There were many moments where I disliked her actions or how she handled certain situations, but those choices always felt true to who she is.
Nothing about her behaviour feels forced for the sake of drama or tension. Instead, her actions are rooted in her upbringing, her mindset, and her emotional struggles. Because of this, the story doesn’t just happen around her; it grows out of her, making everything feel more grounded and authentic.
The supporting cast is just as well realised. Characters like Geoff, Mr Hale, and Lall all have distinct personalities that both clash and complement one another in interesting ways. Their dynamics feel natural, and every interaction comes across as authentic rather than forced.
Each character feels genuinely unique, bringing their own perspectives, beliefs, and flaws into the story. That authenticity is what makes the relationships so engaging to follow.
If anything, this fantastical, time-travelling World War story could almost have worked purely as a period drama focused on these characters — their work, their relationships, and their conflicting beliefs. In many ways, those grounded, human elements feel like the most integral part of the novel.
Story
Set in London during the early years of World War II and into The Blitz, the novel could easily stand on its own as a straight historical story. At its heart, it follows a young woman trying to carve out a place for herself in the world of finance, a space where women were not readily accepted, while navigating a life shaped by war, exhaustion, fear, and relentless pressure. Alongside this, there’s a more personal struggle: her search for self-acceptance, for love, and for the courage to be vulnerable.
Yet, this is only the foundation for something more unusual. The story layers in elements of fantasy, time travel and angels without ever overshadowing the very real tragedy and hardship of life during the Blitz. Instead, these fantastical elements enhance the atmosphere, amplifying the tension and unease of those long, restless nights rather than distracting from them.
I do have to mention that the story’s ending left me unsettled. It is deliberately open, clearly setting up a sequel, one that I’ll need to read before I can fully settle on a final verdict.
Because of that, I’m holding back from a full five stars for now. How Francis Spufford chooses to continue this story will have a big impact on how I ultimately view it.
At the moment, I’m sceptical but also genuinely hopeful.
Initial Struggles
At first, this book was a struggle to get into. Spufford’s prose is unlike anything I’ve really experienced before. He leans heavily into metaphor, so much so that one metaphor often evolves into another, which then unfolds into yet another within the same train of thought.
Early on, this felt tedious. At times, it came across as over-described — a muddled jumble of words that didn’t always seem necessary. It slowed the pace and made it difficult to fully settle into the story.
However, by the end, it really came into its own. What initially felt excessive began to reveal its purpose, painting a vivid and almost surreal picture of the book’s fantastical elements. Once it clicked, the prose became a strength rather than a barrier, adding depth and atmosphere that a simpler style might not have achieved.
Characters
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its small cast of characters, all of whom feel carefully crafted and distinct. Iris, in particular, may be one of the most fully realised characters I’ve read in quite some time.
She’s deeply lovable, but also deeply flawed. Her issues feel real, uncomfortably so at times, and you can’t help but empathise with her, even when she makes decisions you don’t agree with. There were many moments where I disliked her actions or how she handled certain situations, but those choices always felt true to who she is.
Nothing about her behaviour feels forced for the sake of drama or tension. Instead, her actions are rooted in her upbringing, her mindset, and her emotional struggles. Because of this, the story doesn’t just happen around her; it grows out of her, making everything feel more grounded and authentic.
The supporting cast is just as well realised. Characters like Geoff, Mr Hale, and Lall all have distinct personalities that both clash and complement one another in interesting ways. Their dynamics feel natural, and every interaction comes across as authentic rather than forced.
Each character feels genuinely unique, bringing their own perspectives, beliefs, and flaws into the story. That authenticity is what makes the relationships so engaging to follow.
If anything, this fantastical, time-travelling World War story could almost have worked purely as a period drama focused on these characters — their work, their relationships, and their conflicting beliefs. In many ways, those grounded, human elements feel like the most integral part of the novel.
Story
Set in London during the early years of World War II and into The Blitz, the novel could easily stand on its own as a straight historical story. At its heart, it follows a young woman trying to carve out a place for herself in the world of finance, a space where women were not readily accepted, while navigating a life shaped by war, exhaustion, fear, and relentless pressure. Alongside this, there’s a more personal struggle: her search for self-acceptance, for love, and for the courage to be vulnerable.
Yet, this is only the foundation for something more unusual. The story layers in elements of fantasy, time travel and angels without ever overshadowing the very real tragedy and hardship of life during the Blitz. Instead, these fantastical elements enhance the atmosphere, amplifying the tension and unease of those long, restless nights rather than distracting from them.
I do have to mention that the story’s ending left me unsettled. It is deliberately open, clearly setting up a sequel, one that I’ll need to read before I can fully settle on a final verdict.
Because of that, I’m holding back from a full five stars for now. How Francis Spufford chooses to continue this story will have a big impact on how I ultimately view it.
At the moment, I’m sceptical but also genuinely hopeful.
March 8, 2026
One thing I really liked about this book was the way the story includes reflections from Iris with the benefit of hindsight. After certain events, there are moments where she refers to what she later learns and how that changes the way she sees what happened. I found that really engaging because it creates a bit of tension. You know something significant is coming even if you don’t know exactly what yet.
I also really liked Iris as a character. She’s ambitious, driven, and quite complex, which made her feel very real. It was refreshing to read about a female character who’s allowed to be flawed and determined rather than simply likeable.
The book felt much more like historical fiction with just a dash of fantasy. The fantasy elements take quite a while to appear, so it leans heavily on the historical side for most of the story.
The ending didn’t completely work for me. It felt very sudden and didn’t seem to add much to the overall plot. It came across a bit like a final twist for the sake of it rather than something that really added to the story.
Overall, I enjoyed it well enough and I’m glad I read it, but it’s not one I’d personally reread.
Thank you to NetGalley and Francis Spufford for the E-ARC.
I also really liked Iris as a character. She’s ambitious, driven, and quite complex, which made her feel very real. It was refreshing to read about a female character who’s allowed to be flawed and determined rather than simply likeable.
The book felt much more like historical fiction with just a dash of fantasy. The fantasy elements take quite a while to appear, so it leans heavily on the historical side for most of the story.
The ending didn’t completely work for me. It felt very sudden and didn’t seem to add much to the overall plot. It came across a bit like a final twist for the sake of it rather than something that really added to the story.
Overall, I enjoyed it well enough and I’m glad I read it, but it’s not one I’d personally reread.
Thank you to NetGalley and Francis Spufford for the E-ARC.
March 12, 2026
This was a disappointment for me. I have read and enjoyed most of Spufford's previous books, starting with his wonderful nonfiction book "Backroom Boys.". "Red Plenty" and "Golden Hill" were historical novels that were supported by huge amounts of research, but which carried it lightly. "Cahokia Jazz" was an alternative history with a wonderfully well thought alternative America and an exciting plot.
This is a fantasy novel. It is set in London of 1939-40. As usual, Spufford does a brilliant job setting the scene. The physical City and the mood of the "phony war" followed by the real war of daily bombing of London is captured. He shows us the details of what people were eating and how they dressed and how they spoke.
The backbone of the novel is a love story. Iris is an ambitious secretary in a financial firm. Geoff is a young engineer. They have a one-night stand that slowly evolves into an engagement. She is difficult and suspicious of deep involvement. He is naïve and somewhat of a nerd. They spend much of the novel trying to work out their relationship.
The meat of the novel is a world of fantasy powers that threaten London. The Order is a mysterious cabal that is evil. We get haunted men on the streets, an evil blond Nazi beauty, stone statutes that come to life, spells that are cast by playing secret musical instruments, a mystical tunnel to the magical land known as the "Nonesuch", creatures that are swarming points of light, etc.
We get plenty of sentences like this, "Structure upon structure, structure within structure, an abyss of structure that made you feel that by looking into it you were gazing far down, from the top of some intolerably high precipice into untold depths, even though at the same time the cracked plaster of the wall and roof-beams were fainty visible behind it.". If you like that kind of stuff, you will like this book. I don't and I didn't.
The final kick in the pants was to get to the end of this 480-page novel and find the dreaded words, "to be continued". No mention of this on the book cover or at the beginning of the book. We should be warned out front.
This is a fantasy novel. It is set in London of 1939-40. As usual, Spufford does a brilliant job setting the scene. The physical City and the mood of the "phony war" followed by the real war of daily bombing of London is captured. He shows us the details of what people were eating and how they dressed and how they spoke.
The backbone of the novel is a love story. Iris is an ambitious secretary in a financial firm. Geoff is a young engineer. They have a one-night stand that slowly evolves into an engagement. She is difficult and suspicious of deep involvement. He is naïve and somewhat of a nerd. They spend much of the novel trying to work out their relationship.
The meat of the novel is a world of fantasy powers that threaten London. The Order is a mysterious cabal that is evil. We get haunted men on the streets, an evil blond Nazi beauty, stone statutes that come to life, spells that are cast by playing secret musical instruments, a mystical tunnel to the magical land known as the "Nonesuch", creatures that are swarming points of light, etc.
We get plenty of sentences like this, "Structure upon structure, structure within structure, an abyss of structure that made you feel that by looking into it you were gazing far down, from the top of some intolerably high precipice into untold depths, even though at the same time the cracked plaster of the wall and roof-beams were fainty visible behind it.". If you like that kind of stuff, you will like this book. I don't and I didn't.
The final kick in the pants was to get to the end of this 480-page novel and find the dreaded words, "to be continued". No mention of this on the book cover or at the beginning of the book. We should be warned out front.
March 24, 2026
You see "science fiction" and "time travel" on a book, that's what you should probably expect. There shouldn't be a VERY heavy focus on angels and demons making things more complicated. It's a well-written book, just not what I felt like I was signing up for.
Want to read
March 18, 2026Rec. by: Previous work, and maybe Dan T.
November 9, 2025
This is the Francis Spufford of Golden Hill: erudite, adventurous, strong characters and fascinating social history all expertly served up in gorgeous prose. I savoured this novel, rooted for our protagonist Iris, and ended up with several browser tabs open as I wanted to follow-up all the historical references. I had never really thought too deeply before about what it must've been like in London during the Blitz - the sleeplessness, the ruins, the raids, the relentlessness of it all alongside the demands of ordinary life - but this book really made me see it. Not least, how dark it would have been in the blackout, and how people would have needed to get used to that (and the workarounds they developed for dealing with it). I was struck by the demographic changes too, summarisd by the higher pitch of public crowds - because female voices now outnumbered male ones. The insights into wartime finance and the stockmarket also had me gripped, and I never thought that finance could grip me! A fantastic five-stars - I will think of this book each time I'm in the City.
Read
January 31, 2026You can find my review of the wildly imaginative Nonesuch in the February 2026 edition of Locus.
March 22, 2026
To me, this felt like as if Sally Rooney wrote a historical sci-fi. I also rejoiced at the fact that this was a story that challenged the reader. It was a slower read for that reason, because you really had to have your brain ON while reading. The historical aspect was definitely the dominant part of the story (which I liked), and the setting of WWII and the Blitz were so tangible you really felt like being transported back to that time period. For a good two thirds of the book, I wasn't entirely sure whether we needed the sci-fi twist at all, but damn, that ending was worth it. I also loved that the characters were flawed and complex people with personalities and traits that weren't tropey and therefore felt like real human beings. I'm curious to see what the "To be continued" at the ending leads to, because in my opinion this can be read as a standalone, but I'll definitely be picking up the sequel.
March 16, 2026
I was prompted to read this book because of its glowing reviews. I admit I was skeptical about the blending of the realistic depiction of the London Blitz during WWII with the fantastical elements of dark magic Nazis working to manipulate time itself to guarantee a German victory. However, I liked that the protagonist is a woman, Iris Hawkins, who is tasked with battling the evil ambitions of the Nazi cult. And romance and sex spice up the narrative. This ridiculous premise is saved by Spufford’s exceptional prose - making it possible to suspend disbelief - at least until the unsettling end.
March 22, 2026
4.5 rounded up! This book was a complete and utterly delightful surprise! I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into when I started (the book blurb doesn’t do the wonderful weirdness of the novel justice), but I ended up having an absolute blast reading it. I also grew incredibly attached to Iris and Geoff. Their romance felt genuinely real and deeply affecting and is one of the most memorable I’ve read about in a while. My only complaint is the cliffhanger ending. I didn’t realize this was the first book in a duology, and now having to wait for the sequel to find out what happens to Iris and Geoff is going to be tough!
March 14, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley, for the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
I do not understand why this book is so highly rated.
It claims to be "Narnia for adults." It is not.
It is not a time travel book.
It is not a romance.
What it is: A description of life during the Blitz, accompanied by some of the most overwrought, pretentious writing I've come across in a while.
The story doesn't even get started until 50% of the way through; the "magical" parts are barely a subplot.
The FMC is exactly how a middle-aged man would write a young woman. His constant references to her body, her "sluttiness," etc are tiring and distracting. The MMC has all the personality and depth of a cartoon. And the book is filled with side characters that have utterly nothing to do about the plot: Eleanor, all the office workers, etc.
This book took me a week to finish- I would read one of the (overlong) chapters and fall asleep. Its biggest crime is being insufferably boring. This book is about 250 pages too long- and every one of those unneeded pages is filled with what I'm certain the author believes to be "poetic" prose.
And yes, the book ends on a terrible cliffhanger. I will 100% not be reading the next book.
I do not understand why this book is so highly rated.
It claims to be "Narnia for adults." It is not.
It is not a time travel book.
It is not a romance.
What it is: A description of life during the Blitz, accompanied by some of the most overwrought, pretentious writing I've come across in a while.
The story doesn't even get started until 50% of the way through; the "magical" parts are barely a subplot.
The FMC is exactly how a middle-aged man would write a young woman. His constant references to her body, her "sluttiness," etc are tiring and distracting. The MMC has all the personality and depth of a cartoon. And the book is filled with side characters that have utterly nothing to do about the plot: Eleanor, all the office workers, etc.
This book took me a week to finish- I would read one of the (overlong) chapters and fall asleep. Its biggest crime is being insufferably boring. This book is about 250 pages too long- and every one of those unneeded pages is filled with what I'm certain the author believes to be "poetic" prose.
And yes, the book ends on a terrible cliffhanger. I will 100% not be reading the next book.
March 15, 2026
I need the sequel.
January 28, 2026
3.5 stars
March 18, 2026
Summary: A novel about World War II where the war is just some of the reality of the world.
Francis Spufford is a novelist that I avoid all spoilers and descriptions and just buy the book as soon as I see it. Nonesuch was released last week and I started it as soon as I finished my last book. I never like to give away too much when writing about fiction books.
One of the things I really like about Spufford is that he writes very different novels from one another. This one feels like Charles Williams and Neil Gaiman were inspirations (treating the supernatural as very real, with a little bit of almost creepiness, but never really being creepy and enough sex for it not to be a young adult book but it not to feel gratuitous). There is also a hint of CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, but only a hint.
I won't give it away, but Spufford is also very much known for last minute twists to his books. This one is no different and I won't give it away, but this time I didn't love the twist. It makes sense, I understand why he did it. But while I think the twist in Golden Hill made the book, I think it was a net negative here. In some ways, I think it changed the book from a historical fiction book that had great characters and really felt like it was a book about the war and the problems of war, to being a book that "was about something." I don't want to be too negative, because I loved the novel. But I just don't think the twist was quite right.
Iris Hawkins is driven young woman. She works in a brokerage house and she wants to succeed. She also is clearly trying to control the world around her and seems to be running from something. In the days leading up to World War II, she stumbles on the reality of the supernatural and gets drawn in to a bigger story than she really wanted to.
This is a book about war, but it isn't really about war. The reader gets to observe the home front and the bombing of London, day after day. But in part the supernatural story allows the reader to see something else is going on, or at least we get to see some of that.
This is a story of human growth and the development and maturing of the main characters, but no one is perfect or pure. There is a very clear sense of good fighting evil. But the good characters a trying to do what they think is the right thing, even when they don't really want to. And that in some sense is more difficult than if it were a really hard task that they had been given with divine command.
Part of the theme here is that everything shapes us into who we are. The good can help to make us who we are, but so does the bad. We are shaped by the sum total of our reality. And some of that reality is pretty crappy and we can make bad decisions as a result. But I also think that part of what this book is trying to show is that things can get better when we really try to love others and work for the good of others.
I have only read one of Spufford's nonfiction books. He wrote Unapologetic, which is a book about the emotional sense that Christianity makes. Nonesuch is not a "Christian novel." There is sex and bad behavior and language in it. But that emotional sense that he is talking about in Unapologetic is present there. Unapologetic talks a lot about the human propensity to F*ck things up. He talks about it enough in the book to refer to it as move refer to it by its intials, HPtFtU. you can talk about HPtFtU as "sin", but he is trying to have a thicker idea than the flattened idea of sin that we tend to have. The HPtFtU is not just personal sin, but the way everything seems to get messed up, even when we are not trying to.
One thing after another happens to Iris. Some of which we don't really know about until the twist. Some happen to her, some she consciously chooses to do, some are accidental or random. (Part of the randomness of sin is illustrated by the fact that bombs hit some buildings and not others and that is mostly random.) But as much as the HPtFtU is real, human goodnesses and grace are also real. Because while Iris didn't start out trying to be a hero, she did make a small choice which led to another and another and eventually she is consciously working with the supernatural forces to save the world. Both the HPtFtU and the grace of love and community are real things.
I have really enjoyed good fiction this year. The Correspondent, Project Hail Mary, The Daughter of Rage and Ruin and others are doing what fiction is supposed to do, working at us internally. We need non-fiction to learn information, but fiction I think does more to shape us into who we can become.
Update: Ted Olson pointed out to me on twitter that there is a second book in the series and that the twist likely is a setup for the second book. There is nothing that had seen previously about the book that said it was part of a series. But you can see that Spufford is talking about the second book in interviews like here, but the official webpage from the publisher doesn't mention that.
This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/nonesuch/
Francis Spufford is a novelist that I avoid all spoilers and descriptions and just buy the book as soon as I see it. Nonesuch was released last week and I started it as soon as I finished my last book. I never like to give away too much when writing about fiction books.
One of the things I really like about Spufford is that he writes very different novels from one another. This one feels like Charles Williams and Neil Gaiman were inspirations (treating the supernatural as very real, with a little bit of almost creepiness, but never really being creepy and enough sex for it not to be a young adult book but it not to feel gratuitous). There is also a hint of CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, but only a hint.
I won't give it away, but Spufford is also very much known for last minute twists to his books. This one is no different and I won't give it away, but this time I didn't love the twist. It makes sense, I understand why he did it. But while I think the twist in Golden Hill made the book, I think it was a net negative here. In some ways, I think it changed the book from a historical fiction book that had great characters and really felt like it was a book about the war and the problems of war, to being a book that "was about something." I don't want to be too negative, because I loved the novel. But I just don't think the twist was quite right.
Iris Hawkins is driven young woman. She works in a brokerage house and she wants to succeed. She also is clearly trying to control the world around her and seems to be running from something. In the days leading up to World War II, she stumbles on the reality of the supernatural and gets drawn in to a bigger story than she really wanted to.
This is a book about war, but it isn't really about war. The reader gets to observe the home front and the bombing of London, day after day. But in part the supernatural story allows the reader to see something else is going on, or at least we get to see some of that.
This is a story of human growth and the development and maturing of the main characters, but no one is perfect or pure. There is a very clear sense of good fighting evil. But the good characters a trying to do what they think is the right thing, even when they don't really want to. And that in some sense is more difficult than if it were a really hard task that they had been given with divine command.
Part of the theme here is that everything shapes us into who we are. The good can help to make us who we are, but so does the bad. We are shaped by the sum total of our reality. And some of that reality is pretty crappy and we can make bad decisions as a result. But I also think that part of what this book is trying to show is that things can get better when we really try to love others and work for the good of others.
I have only read one of Spufford's nonfiction books. He wrote Unapologetic, which is a book about the emotional sense that Christianity makes. Nonesuch is not a "Christian novel." There is sex and bad behavior and language in it. But that emotional sense that he is talking about in Unapologetic is present there. Unapologetic talks a lot about the human propensity to F*ck things up. He talks about it enough in the book to refer to it as move refer to it by its intials, HPtFtU. you can talk about HPtFtU as "sin", but he is trying to have a thicker idea than the flattened idea of sin that we tend to have. The HPtFtU is not just personal sin, but the way everything seems to get messed up, even when we are not trying to.
One thing after another happens to Iris. Some of which we don't really know about until the twist. Some happen to her, some she consciously chooses to do, some are accidental or random. (Part of the randomness of sin is illustrated by the fact that bombs hit some buildings and not others and that is mostly random.) But as much as the HPtFtU is real, human goodnesses and grace are also real. Because while Iris didn't start out trying to be a hero, she did make a small choice which led to another and another and eventually she is consciously working with the supernatural forces to save the world. Both the HPtFtU and the grace of love and community are real things.
I have really enjoyed good fiction this year. The Correspondent, Project Hail Mary, The Daughter of Rage and Ruin and others are doing what fiction is supposed to do, working at us internally. We need non-fiction to learn information, but fiction I think does more to shape us into who we can become.
Update: Ted Olson pointed out to me on twitter that there is a second book in the series and that the twist likely is a setup for the second book. There is nothing that had seen previously about the book that said it was part of a series. But you can see that Spufford is talking about the second book in interviews like here, but the official webpage from the publisher doesn't mention that.
This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/nonesuch/
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
How taken you are with Francis Spufford's extravagantly imaginative “Nonesuch,” in which mortals interact with distinctly nontraditional angels in Blitz-era London, depends on how much of an appetite you have for fantastical fare and how appreciative you are of densely rich prose in the manner of, say, Dickens’ “Bleak House,” which I’m told college students today find unfathomable but which I kept being put pleasantly in mind of from my English major days as I relished Spufford’s own richly dense prose.
Of the scene the morning after the first bombs fall on central London, for instance, Spufford’s protagonist, Iris Hawkins, notes in particular “a Victorian building no different from the other red-brick four-storey affairs in a row with it, picked out from them by no principle except pure randomness, (which) had been riven from the top down, destroyed in a descending V by something from the sky. There was a little bit more left of each floor, going down. Nothing but air where the roof had been, and then a narrowing path of ripping and shattering, with paintwork and wallpaper and dangling furniture and the building’s hidden inner surfaces all exposed, turned inside out, put on violent view.”
“Like being left for dead with your knickers showing,” thinks Iris, who, like any number of her sister characters through the annals of narrative history, is looking to be taken seriously by men, something that will in fact increasingly come to pass for her in her job as a secretary at a brokerage house, where her boss, who might well be out of Dickens with his “harumphing” and with some sort of secret financial doing that he’s up to, becomes increasingly impressed with her financial acumen.
Much on display, indeed, her financial sagacity, at a dinner she attends where she’s surprised to learn that the person to whom she has been holding forth about financial matters is in fact the noted economist John Maynard Keynes, to whom, in response to a question from him about whether he’s actually encountered a believer in capitalism under the age of 50, she is quick to assent.
Hardly the social misfit or klutz that such financial astuteness might suggest, though, Iris, what with a simmering sexuality within her that has her not exactly diffident about seeking male company; indeed, the novel opens with her decked out in “a silver dress, bias cut so it flowed over curves and clung there mermaid close” as she steps out for an evening with her escort of the moment but by no means actual boyfriend, Charlie, a decided clod of whom she’s quick to inform a woman she connects with in the course of the evening that, yes, he’s as much of an idiot as the woman thinks he might be.
Simpatico enough, indeed, the two women become in the course of the evening that they’re not long in stealing away from the night spot where they’ve met, leaving Charlie deservedly in the lurch, and ending up at a more congenial place where Iris encounters Geoff, an infinitely more appealing romantic possibility, as well as a singularly off-putting woman who will come to be her nemesis.
One Lall Cunningham, her antagonist-to-be, who makes no bones of her ideological bent when she responds to another character asking her if she thinks “we should let (the Nazis) gobble up Poland, like they did Czechoslovakia," by saying, “I think that we should be grateful to the Fuhrer for taking care of Bolshevism, for all our sakes.”
A true-blue disciple of the Reich, in short, Lall, to whom, when she snaps at Iris, “what are you looking at,” Iris responds, “a fascist, apparently.”
Which, indeed, she very much proves to be by going on to employ the time-travel possibility afforded in the novel to try to kill Churchill before he becomes the indomitable force that will help vanquish Hitler and his Reich.
Revealing more would be giving away too much, other than to say that along the way toward a finale played out in the skies and rooftops above London, Iris shows herself to be a woman of considerable mettle as well as the aforementioned sexual heat, a “liquifying flame” shown to graphic effect in the scene where with enthusiastic gusto she unburdens Geoff of his virginity.
Quite the read, in short, Spufford’s literary extravaganza, even if its fantastical elements were less compelling for me than its straightforward historical ones, which seemed strong enough to me that they could well have stood on their own without the fantastical overlay. But authors must follow their own inclinations in addressing their subjects of choice, a particular challenge, it seems to me, in dealing with such well-excavated subjects as the two world wars, which have had no small number of other authors searching for new and inventive ways to deal with them – notably for me, Katherine Arden in her “The Warm Hands of Ghosts,” which also employed otherworldliness in its depiction of the trench horrors of World War I and which I was put in mind of more than once as I read Spufford.
Of the scene the morning after the first bombs fall on central London, for instance, Spufford’s protagonist, Iris Hawkins, notes in particular “a Victorian building no different from the other red-brick four-storey affairs in a row with it, picked out from them by no principle except pure randomness, (which) had been riven from the top down, destroyed in a descending V by something from the sky. There was a little bit more left of each floor, going down. Nothing but air where the roof had been, and then a narrowing path of ripping and shattering, with paintwork and wallpaper and dangling furniture and the building’s hidden inner surfaces all exposed, turned inside out, put on violent view.”
“Like being left for dead with your knickers showing,” thinks Iris, who, like any number of her sister characters through the annals of narrative history, is looking to be taken seriously by men, something that will in fact increasingly come to pass for her in her job as a secretary at a brokerage house, where her boss, who might well be out of Dickens with his “harumphing” and with some sort of secret financial doing that he’s up to, becomes increasingly impressed with her financial acumen.
Much on display, indeed, her financial sagacity, at a dinner she attends where she’s surprised to learn that the person to whom she has been holding forth about financial matters is in fact the noted economist John Maynard Keynes, to whom, in response to a question from him about whether he’s actually encountered a believer in capitalism under the age of 50, she is quick to assent.
Hardly the social misfit or klutz that such financial astuteness might suggest, though, Iris, what with a simmering sexuality within her that has her not exactly diffident about seeking male company; indeed, the novel opens with her decked out in “a silver dress, bias cut so it flowed over curves and clung there mermaid close” as she steps out for an evening with her escort of the moment but by no means actual boyfriend, Charlie, a decided clod of whom she’s quick to inform a woman she connects with in the course of the evening that, yes, he’s as much of an idiot as the woman thinks he might be.
Simpatico enough, indeed, the two women become in the course of the evening that they’re not long in stealing away from the night spot where they’ve met, leaving Charlie deservedly in the lurch, and ending up at a more congenial place where Iris encounters Geoff, an infinitely more appealing romantic possibility, as well as a singularly off-putting woman who will come to be her nemesis.
One Lall Cunningham, her antagonist-to-be, who makes no bones of her ideological bent when she responds to another character asking her if she thinks “we should let (the Nazis) gobble up Poland, like they did Czechoslovakia," by saying, “I think that we should be grateful to the Fuhrer for taking care of Bolshevism, for all our sakes.”
A true-blue disciple of the Reich, in short, Lall, to whom, when she snaps at Iris, “what are you looking at,” Iris responds, “a fascist, apparently.”
Which, indeed, she very much proves to be by going on to employ the time-travel possibility afforded in the novel to try to kill Churchill before he becomes the indomitable force that will help vanquish Hitler and his Reich.
Revealing more would be giving away too much, other than to say that along the way toward a finale played out in the skies and rooftops above London, Iris shows herself to be a woman of considerable mettle as well as the aforementioned sexual heat, a “liquifying flame” shown to graphic effect in the scene where with enthusiastic gusto she unburdens Geoff of his virginity.
Quite the read, in short, Spufford’s literary extravaganza, even if its fantastical elements were less compelling for me than its straightforward historical ones, which seemed strong enough to me that they could well have stood on their own without the fantastical overlay. But authors must follow their own inclinations in addressing their subjects of choice, a particular challenge, it seems to me, in dealing with such well-excavated subjects as the two world wars, which have had no small number of other authors searching for new and inventive ways to deal with them – notably for me, Katherine Arden in her “The Warm Hands of Ghosts,” which also employed otherworldliness in its depiction of the trench horrors of World War I and which I was put in mind of more than once as I read Spufford.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This is a fine piece of fiction.
It reminds me of Connie Willis, in that it's set in World War II, in the Blitz, and involves time travel, though the time travel doesn't come until the end. It also reminds me of Charles Williams, in that it's set in the period when he was writing and involves the occult (a secret society along the lines of the Golden Dawn, working from the writings of a 17th-century researcher who discovered how to bind lesser angels into statues around London). But it feels very different from both authors. It has more psychological and spiritual depth than Willis, and is more down to earth and much less self-consciously lyrical than Williams, and the main character is one that neither of them would write. It's like the best parts of both writers, plus something neither of them achieves.
The author started out as a nonfiction writer, which is probably why it feels so well researched, and yet the research isn't ground into the reader's face like some authors (including Connie Willis) sometimes do. It's used to give us a moment of observation that makes us feel like we're actually there and then, a passing detail that someone in that place and time might well have observed. It's literary in feel, but not in the trying-too-hard, overly lyrical way that some writers approach being literary. It feels literary because of the aptness of the observations, the way the characters come to understand themselves and each other, and the theme that runs throughout.
I'd summarize that theme as a confrontation and a contrast between people who believe that having power gives them the right to do whatever they want because they can, and people who believe that human freedom and dignity is a higher value. The most obvious level at which this operates is World War II itself, between the Nazis and the beleaguered British. Part of the plot hinges on the moment where Churchill almost didn't become Prime Minister and lead Britain to fight, instead of taking the easier route of folding in the face of the Nazi threat. But it's also operating at the level of the occultists and British fascists (there's considerable overlap between the two groups); real-life occultists often were seekers of power for its own sake, and if they had got it would have used it to exploit others for their own benefit, so this rings true. And at a personal level, it comes down to two women: Lall, an aristocratic British fascist who has got hold of some of the occult research and is determined to use it to impose her vision of how the world should be ordered, regardless of what anyone else thinks or what it costs them, and the protagonist, Iris, who is determined to stop her, who considers the losses Britain is suffering (and that she herself and her beloved are suffering) are a worthwhile price for freedom.
Iris is a complex character. She starts out, for me, at least, unsympathetic; she sleeps with a number of well-off idiots who she has no respect and not much liking for, mostly because she enjoys the sex, though also (very secondarily) because they take her to nice places beforehand. She picks up Geoff, a nerdy young radio engineer, at a bohemian club they both happen to be at, partly to spite Lall, who Geoff is obviously smitten by, though it's equally obvious Lall doesn't want him. But then events both supernatural and otherwise start to occur, and Iris starts to discover new dimensions in the world and in herself. Eventually, we get the story that's been hinted at throughout about the fire that changed her life, and it forms a key part of a devastating conclusion that pulls off the "surprising but inevitable" trick perfectly.
In fact, the whole thing is pulled off very nearly perfectly, with the odd exception (for such a careful researcher) of a family whose individual titles make no sense when taken together. I had a pre-publication version for review from Netgalley, and will mention this issue to the publisher, and it may well be corrected before publication. I did also wonder , but that was a minor point.
This is by far one of the best books I have read this year, and given that I've read, so far, 150 books in 2025, that's an achievement. Highly recommended.
It reminds me of Connie Willis, in that it's set in World War II, in the Blitz, and involves time travel, though the time travel doesn't come until the end. It also reminds me of Charles Williams, in that it's set in the period when he was writing and involves the occult (a secret society along the lines of the Golden Dawn, working from the writings of a 17th-century researcher who discovered how to bind lesser angels into statues around London). But it feels very different from both authors. It has more psychological and spiritual depth than Willis, and is more down to earth and much less self-consciously lyrical than Williams, and the main character is one that neither of them would write. It's like the best parts of both writers, plus something neither of them achieves.
The author started out as a nonfiction writer, which is probably why it feels so well researched, and yet the research isn't ground into the reader's face like some authors (including Connie Willis) sometimes do. It's used to give us a moment of observation that makes us feel like we're actually there and then, a passing detail that someone in that place and time might well have observed. It's literary in feel, but not in the trying-too-hard, overly lyrical way that some writers approach being literary. It feels literary because of the aptness of the observations, the way the characters come to understand themselves and each other, and the theme that runs throughout.
I'd summarize that theme as a confrontation and a contrast between people who believe that having power gives them the right to do whatever they want because they can, and people who believe that human freedom and dignity is a higher value. The most obvious level at which this operates is World War II itself, between the Nazis and the beleaguered British. Part of the plot hinges on the moment where Churchill almost didn't become Prime Minister and lead Britain to fight, instead of taking the easier route of folding in the face of the Nazi threat. But it's also operating at the level of the occultists and British fascists (there's considerable overlap between the two groups); real-life occultists often were seekers of power for its own sake, and if they had got it would have used it to exploit others for their own benefit, so this rings true. And at a personal level, it comes down to two women: Lall, an aristocratic British fascist who has got hold of some of the occult research and is determined to use it to impose her vision of how the world should be ordered, regardless of what anyone else thinks or what it costs them, and the protagonist, Iris, who is determined to stop her, who considers the losses Britain is suffering (and that she herself and her beloved are suffering) are a worthwhile price for freedom.
Iris is a complex character. She starts out, for me, at least, unsympathetic; she sleeps with a number of well-off idiots who she has no respect and not much liking for, mostly because she enjoys the sex, though also (very secondarily) because they take her to nice places beforehand. She picks up Geoff, a nerdy young radio engineer, at a bohemian club they both happen to be at, partly to spite Lall, who Geoff is obviously smitten by, though it's equally obvious Lall doesn't want him. But then events both supernatural and otherwise start to occur, and Iris starts to discover new dimensions in the world and in herself. Eventually, we get the story that's been hinted at throughout about the fire that changed her life, and it forms a key part of a devastating conclusion that pulls off the "surprising but inevitable" trick perfectly.
In fact, the whole thing is pulled off very nearly perfectly, with the odd exception (for such a careful researcher) of a family whose individual titles make no sense when taken together. I had a pre-publication version for review from Netgalley, and will mention this issue to the publisher, and it may well be corrected before publication. I did also wonder , but that was a minor point.
This is by far one of the best books I have read this year, and given that I've read, so far, 150 books in 2025, that's an achievement. Highly recommended.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I read a free advance digital review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
London during World War II is where we find our heroine, Iris Hawkins. Iris, a working-class girl from Watford, works at a bank/brokerage and yearns to become a finance professional herself, but there is no possibility of that work for a woman in the UK at that time. One way Iris takes out her frustrations is to go out dancing and pick up men. She knows how to take care of herself, no problem there.
One night, just before war is declared, she unexpectedly ends up in an avant-garde club, sitting at a table with some people from the BBC. Iris and the ice-cold Lall take an immediate dislike to each other. Iris doesn’t appreciate Lall’s snobbery, but more so her fascist views. Just to spite her, Iris picks up Geoff, a BBC technician who is clearly besotted with Lall, even though she treats him like a lackey. What Iris intended as a one-night stand inexplicably leads to contact with some kind of otherworldly forces that, for want of a better word, she calls angels—even though they’re often not very angelic. When an angel tells Iris about evil time travelers who have to be stopped before they visit a fate worse than Hitler on the world, the determined Iris will fight for a better present and future, against the backdrop of the Blitz.
I wouldn’t categorize this as a time travel book. The whole time travel element isn’t even introduced until nearly halfway through the book. It’s more of a historical novel about London during the Blitz, with fantasy elements, and a feminist theme. In a recent interview in The Bookseller, author Francis Spufford says Iris’s character was inspired in part by his grandmother, and the fact that the war opened up “a strange, ambiguous time of liberty for women.” He wanted to write about what that time “would be like for somebody with her elbows out, determined to rise in a world unfriendly to a young woman [who is] ambitious and clever . . . and a bit ruthless.”
Iris’s nemesis, Lady Lalage (“Lall”) Cunningham made me think of a combination of the infamous Nazi-loving sisters Diana and Unity Mitford. Lall has Diana’s blonde beauty and selfish disregard for anyone not in her class and British Union of Fascists circle, and the hateful naïveté of Unity, who proudly declared herself an antisemite, was happy to take a German apartment stolen from a Jewish family by the Nazis, and shot herself when war was declared between Germany and Britain. She makes for an excellent foil to Iris, though I’d say her character tends to the cartoonishly evil on occasion.
Iris and Geoff are characters wholly realized. Spufford explores them as individuals, but also has them frankly address the social conventions of the time for men and women and how they might affect their hopes and ambitions. It’s done in a way that doesn’t feel at all didactic; just in character for the very outspoken Iris, who knows what she wants for herself, but is put a little off-kilter by unexpectedly falling in love.
I chose this book largely because I love novels set in wartime London, but also because I was so impressed by Spufford’s speculative historical fiction novel Cahokia Jazz. Spufford really knows how to spin a yarn. Iris’s world comes alive because of Spufford’s brilliantly evocative writing. This guy is meticulous at world building in a fictional historical context. He is also like nobody else I’ve ever read at physical descriptions, especially unusual sights and sounds. In this book, his descriptions of London’s Square Mile at night during the Blitz, at the same time a fantasy angel challenge takes place, are vivid and unforgettable.
Although this book ends with a “to be continued,” it’s not a cliffhanger. It could have ended when it did. But there will be a sequel, titled Arkady, and readers who were taken with Iris and her world will get to see her again in 2027.
4.5 stars, rounded up
London during World War II is where we find our heroine, Iris Hawkins. Iris, a working-class girl from Watford, works at a bank/brokerage and yearns to become a finance professional herself, but there is no possibility of that work for a woman in the UK at that time. One way Iris takes out her frustrations is to go out dancing and pick up men. She knows how to take care of herself, no problem there.
One night, just before war is declared, she unexpectedly ends up in an avant-garde club, sitting at a table with some people from the BBC. Iris and the ice-cold Lall take an immediate dislike to each other. Iris doesn’t appreciate Lall’s snobbery, but more so her fascist views. Just to spite her, Iris picks up Geoff, a BBC technician who is clearly besotted with Lall, even though she treats him like a lackey. What Iris intended as a one-night stand inexplicably leads to contact with some kind of otherworldly forces that, for want of a better word, she calls angels—even though they’re often not very angelic. When an angel tells Iris about evil time travelers who have to be stopped before they visit a fate worse than Hitler on the world, the determined Iris will fight for a better present and future, against the backdrop of the Blitz.
I wouldn’t categorize this as a time travel book. The whole time travel element isn’t even introduced until nearly halfway through the book. It’s more of a historical novel about London during the Blitz, with fantasy elements, and a feminist theme. In a recent interview in The Bookseller, author Francis Spufford says Iris’s character was inspired in part by his grandmother, and the fact that the war opened up “a strange, ambiguous time of liberty for women.” He wanted to write about what that time “would be like for somebody with her elbows out, determined to rise in a world unfriendly to a young woman [who is] ambitious and clever . . . and a bit ruthless.”
Iris’s nemesis, Lady Lalage (“Lall”) Cunningham made me think of a combination of the infamous Nazi-loving sisters Diana and Unity Mitford. Lall has Diana’s blonde beauty and selfish disregard for anyone not in her class and British Union of Fascists circle, and the hateful naïveté of Unity, who proudly declared herself an antisemite, was happy to take a German apartment stolen from a Jewish family by the Nazis, and shot herself when war was declared between Germany and Britain. She makes for an excellent foil to Iris, though I’d say her character tends to the cartoonishly evil on occasion.
Iris and Geoff are characters wholly realized. Spufford explores them as individuals, but also has them frankly address the social conventions of the time for men and women and how they might affect their hopes and ambitions. It’s done in a way that doesn’t feel at all didactic; just in character for the very outspoken Iris, who knows what she wants for herself, but is put a little off-kilter by unexpectedly falling in love.
I chose this book largely because I love novels set in wartime London, but also because I was so impressed by Spufford’s speculative historical fiction novel Cahokia Jazz. Spufford really knows how to spin a yarn. Iris’s world comes alive because of Spufford’s brilliantly evocative writing. This guy is meticulous at world building in a fictional historical context. He is also like nobody else I’ve ever read at physical descriptions, especially unusual sights and sounds. In this book, his descriptions of London’s Square Mile at night during the Blitz, at the same time a fantasy angel challenge takes place, are vivid and unforgettable.
Although this book ends with a “to be continued,” it’s not a cliffhanger. It could have ended when it did. But there will be a sequel, titled Arkady, and readers who were taken with Iris and her world will get to see her again in 2027.
4.5 stars, rounded up
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Francis Spufford’s fourth novel Nonesuch is a beguiling combination of historical and speculative fiction. Spufford effortlessly blends the experience of living in London in the lead up to and into World War 2 with a story of the occult with angels, secret codes and ancient societies. And in the middle of it all a feisty, non-nonsense heroine.
Spufford makes his intentions very clear from the Prologue. This involves a woman hiding out in a place called the Mariner Building until after dark and then using an incantation to bring a statue of the mariner on the outside of that building to life. Much later than the start of the narrative which is 1939, in London. The world is on the brink of war and Iris Hawkins just wants to go dancing with her boyfriend Charlie. Only Charlie has made other plans which Iris ends up bailing on. She runs away to the “coloured chaos” of the Kenesis club in the “dimmer and more bohemian streets of Fitzrovia”. There she meets and seduces Geoff, a one night stand which she regrets and that somehow results in her being pursued by dark, otherworldly being.
Dealing with this creature and having to reconnect with Geoff pulls Iris into a shadowy world of secret societies, angels and magic users and, ultimately, a threat to history as she knows it. And in amongst that Iris has to deal with the start of World War 2 and the bombing of London which itself turns her world upside down.
Iris is a complex and delightful creation. She works for a financial house in London and when the story starts she has what amounts to a secretarial job. But she is interested in finance and the share market and wants to do more and finds that opportunity when the war comes and takes many of the young men away. Iris is also not ashamed of having a good time, particularly in the shadow of the looming war. And when Iris discovers that there is more to the world than she previously thought she revels in learning about that too, runs towards the danger and takes on the burden of protecting it. There is a tragedy in her past that drives Iris, a break with her family which is only hinted at for most of the book.
This book is as much historical fiction as it is fantasy. Spufford builds an deeply effective picture of London on the eve of war. He then later, he takes readers into the reality of the Blitz, of people sheltering in shelters and tube stations, of the fire wardens whose job it was to deal with incendiaries, of rationing and privation.
In amongst all of this deeply researched and presented historical detail he builds an alternative world. A world of secret societies and magic, of spells and secret portals. Spufford does this slowly and through Iris’s eyes and with as much loving detail as the rest of the novel. So that it all becomes of a piece and it is remarkably easy to accept Spufford’s premise and his version of the world.
Francis Spufford’s second novel The Light Perpetual also took as its jumping off point the bombing of London. In that book, Spufford wondered what might have been different if a particular bomb had not destroyed a particular building and the victims of that bombing had gone on to live their lives. He developed an alternate present which branched off from that point. In Nonesuch he asks a different question – what if someone had the power to prevent Britain entering the war in the way it did and hence handing the victory to Germany? What if you could rewind all of the death and destruction that came with the Battle of Britain? And then what if you had the power to stop it?
Now for the warning. Nonesuch is the first book of a duology. It ends on what can only be described as a massive cliffhanger. The trick that Spufford manages to pull is that although he has built up to something, he managed to make the actual cliffhanger a complete surprise when it comes. But the journey there is absolutely worth it and the follow up, apparently to be titled Arcady cannot come soon enough.
Spufford makes his intentions very clear from the Prologue. This involves a woman hiding out in a place called the Mariner Building until after dark and then using an incantation to bring a statue of the mariner on the outside of that building to life. Much later than the start of the narrative which is 1939, in London. The world is on the brink of war and Iris Hawkins just wants to go dancing with her boyfriend Charlie. Only Charlie has made other plans which Iris ends up bailing on. She runs away to the “coloured chaos” of the Kenesis club in the “dimmer and more bohemian streets of Fitzrovia”. There she meets and seduces Geoff, a one night stand which she regrets and that somehow results in her being pursued by dark, otherworldly being.
Dealing with this creature and having to reconnect with Geoff pulls Iris into a shadowy world of secret societies, angels and magic users and, ultimately, a threat to history as she knows it. And in amongst that Iris has to deal with the start of World War 2 and the bombing of London which itself turns her world upside down.
Iris is a complex and delightful creation. She works for a financial house in London and when the story starts she has what amounts to a secretarial job. But she is interested in finance and the share market and wants to do more and finds that opportunity when the war comes and takes many of the young men away. Iris is also not ashamed of having a good time, particularly in the shadow of the looming war. And when Iris discovers that there is more to the world than she previously thought she revels in learning about that too, runs towards the danger and takes on the burden of protecting it. There is a tragedy in her past that drives Iris, a break with her family which is only hinted at for most of the book.
This book is as much historical fiction as it is fantasy. Spufford builds an deeply effective picture of London on the eve of war. He then later, he takes readers into the reality of the Blitz, of people sheltering in shelters and tube stations, of the fire wardens whose job it was to deal with incendiaries, of rationing and privation.
In amongst all of this deeply researched and presented historical detail he builds an alternative world. A world of secret societies and magic, of spells and secret portals. Spufford does this slowly and through Iris’s eyes and with as much loving detail as the rest of the novel. So that it all becomes of a piece and it is remarkably easy to accept Spufford’s premise and his version of the world.
Francis Spufford’s second novel The Light Perpetual also took as its jumping off point the bombing of London. In that book, Spufford wondered what might have been different if a particular bomb had not destroyed a particular building and the victims of that bombing had gone on to live their lives. He developed an alternate present which branched off from that point. In Nonesuch he asks a different question – what if someone had the power to prevent Britain entering the war in the way it did and hence handing the victory to Germany? What if you could rewind all of the death and destruction that came with the Battle of Britain? And then what if you had the power to stop it?
Now for the warning. Nonesuch is the first book of a duology. It ends on what can only be described as a massive cliffhanger. The trick that Spufford manages to pull is that although he has built up to something, he managed to make the actual cliffhanger a complete surprise when it comes. But the journey there is absolutely worth it and the follow up, apparently to be titled Arcady cannot come soon enough.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Spufford brings his strong non-fiction background and blends it with fantasy to bring alive London before and during World War I in this historical fiction. He does his best capturing the detailed intimacy of London’s citizenry from defiance of Hitler to a city devastated by nightly bombings. He captures people’s bravery - from holding onto small pockets of joy to braving rooftops to put out incendiary flames that could destroy the building. He makes the bomb shelters come alive as everyone hides from backyard dug outs to urine-smelling underground stations to luxury under the Ritz Hotel. Rationing increasingly limits food, where relationships with vendors such as butchers and grocers meant more than cash. He also traces the rising arc of Churchill’s political career, to his ascendency to Prime Minister as holding a firm anti-Hitler position.
Layered on top of this is a fantasy world interwoven in 1930’s London, where “lower world angels” can be entrapped by practitioners of dark magic and the occult. One such group in London, calling themselves The Order, have enslaved an angel, and uses it as a monstrous avenging force when needed. The Order, having been run by men, has fallen apart and a young, reckless socialite Lall has grabbed for power. She’s the daughter of a strong pro-Nazi and wants to further the fascists agenda by going back in time to kill Churchill and enable Britain to fall in Nazi hands. To do so, she must go to the center of the magical world, known as Nonesuch, which can only be reached via a series of bridges powered by lower angels trapped in statues throughout London’s rooftop.
The story’s heroine, Iris, is a smart and ambitious bank secretary who’s deeply frustrated by the misogynist times in which men dominate in careers and women settle for background clerical positions. Iris wants to be a banker herself, follows the market carefully, reads all the leading economists and tries to figure out how to profit in a post-War market. Her financial focus and ambition bring a unique historical angle to war times.
Along the way, she seduces a young TV tech wizard, Geoff, who up until then had been pining after Lall. In revenge, Lall sends The Order’s entrapped angel in monster form to attack Iris. Iris’ interactions with the magical world grow via Geoff’s father, who’s served for years as the Order’s librarian and keeper of the mystical articles. Iris and Lall engage in an intense battle- Iris trying to prevent Lall from reaching Nonesuch.
But Spufford fumbles awkwardly in his telling of the tale from a women’s perspective. Lall describes herself early in the novel as a “bad girl”, “slut”, “Fucking a sailor would be easy”, “Fuck-it-Let’s-Do-It-Anyway Iris”, “Take it from a slut”, and “I want to get warm, at least before I get fucked.” Iris thinks to herself that she relied “on the bad girl’s advantage of being taken to dinner a lot” and of “the discoveries of a woman’s power if she was shameless.” Iris repeatedly describes her sexuality in the most male derogatory terms. She muses, “Borrowing the men’s language for desire, you knew that the right worlds that turned you into meat were nearby.” No smart, ambitious woman of her times would be so self-sabotaging. The repeated instance of this happening deeply detracts from the novel’s strong historical and fantasy elements.
The book ends with a cliff-hanger smack dab in the middle of the action. Here’s hoping that Iris will be back to the wonders of Nonesuch and the rise of her financial career without the damaging internal dialog.
Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.
Layered on top of this is a fantasy world interwoven in 1930’s London, where “lower world angels” can be entrapped by practitioners of dark magic and the occult. One such group in London, calling themselves The Order, have enslaved an angel, and uses it as a monstrous avenging force when needed. The Order, having been run by men, has fallen apart and a young, reckless socialite Lall has grabbed for power. She’s the daughter of a strong pro-Nazi and wants to further the fascists agenda by going back in time to kill Churchill and enable Britain to fall in Nazi hands. To do so, she must go to the center of the magical world, known as Nonesuch, which can only be reached via a series of bridges powered by lower angels trapped in statues throughout London’s rooftop.
The story’s heroine, Iris, is a smart and ambitious bank secretary who’s deeply frustrated by the misogynist times in which men dominate in careers and women settle for background clerical positions. Iris wants to be a banker herself, follows the market carefully, reads all the leading economists and tries to figure out how to profit in a post-War market. Her financial focus and ambition bring a unique historical angle to war times.
Along the way, she seduces a young TV tech wizard, Geoff, who up until then had been pining after Lall. In revenge, Lall sends The Order’s entrapped angel in monster form to attack Iris. Iris’ interactions with the magical world grow via Geoff’s father, who’s served for years as the Order’s librarian and keeper of the mystical articles. Iris and Lall engage in an intense battle- Iris trying to prevent Lall from reaching Nonesuch.
But Spufford fumbles awkwardly in his telling of the tale from a women’s perspective. Lall describes herself early in the novel as a “bad girl”, “slut”, “Fucking a sailor would be easy”, “Fuck-it-Let’s-Do-It-Anyway Iris”, “Take it from a slut”, and “I want to get warm, at least before I get fucked.” Iris thinks to herself that she relied “on the bad girl’s advantage of being taken to dinner a lot” and of “the discoveries of a woman’s power if she was shameless.” Iris repeatedly describes her sexuality in the most male derogatory terms. She muses, “Borrowing the men’s language for desire, you knew that the right worlds that turned you into meat were nearby.” No smart, ambitious woman of her times would be so self-sabotaging. The repeated instance of this happening deeply detracts from the novel’s strong historical and fantasy elements.
The book ends with a cliff-hanger smack dab in the middle of the action. Here’s hoping that Iris will be back to the wonders of Nonesuch and the rise of her financial career without the damaging internal dialog.
Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.
February 27, 2026
I went into this book with a slightly wistful hope that I might get a flavour of Connie Willis’s excellent Oxford Time Travel adventures as the blurb had a flavour of it…
This is a wonderful, gripping read with the depth and sophistication of a literary read and the tension and pace of a well-told genre thriller. Iris is an ambitious young woman, who wants to become wealthy in her own right – as opposed to marrying money – despite the twin obstacles of gender and class. And given that sexism and classism still pose real impediments in 2026 for aspiring youngsters wishing to make their way in Britain, the barriers Iris face are formidable. I love that Spufford doesn’t tell us, so much as show Iris’s efforts to overcome these difficulties. She is mocked several times for her unnaturally posh accent, acquired by an elocution teacher to smooth out her Watford vowels and despite showing indepth knowledge of the stock market, her Manager is reluctant to promote her.
She also enjoys sex, which as an unmarried woman in a time when having a baby out of wedlock brought social ruin, is somewhat risky behaviour. That said, I didn’t roll my eyes at this detail because it made sense with the rest of Iris’s character, especially as she is estranged from most of her family for reasons that become clear during the story. I loved her intelligence, hyper-awareness of the people around her and her feisty nature. I also loved the slightly messy nature of her unfolding relationship with Geoff set against the strains imposed by the war – it’s beautifully done.
So I really cared about Iris and very much hoped that everything would pan out for her. What I didn’t expect was a sudden, catastrophic plot twist right at the end of the book, which leaves everything on a major cliff-hanger and me more than a bit desperate to know what happens next. Particularly as there’s no indication that a sequel is planned – frankly, I’m fervently hoping that book is written and in the final stages of editing, but making me wait for more than a handful of months must be counted as cruel and unusual punishment.
The other major character I haven’t yet discussed is London. The setting of the unfolding drama of both the war and Iris’s increasing awareness of uncanny influences being harnessed for nefarious reasons is vividly depicted. Spufford’s evident love for the city of London and awareness of its history spills from the pages in wonderful detail as the increasing hardship for people living there is charted. All in all, this was a memorable and wonderful read that lifted me out of my everyday life and took me to somewhere completely different. And yes – I’m delighted to say that I got my Connie Willis vibes, thank you very much. And that doesn’t happen very often, because writers of that quality are rare. Very highly recommended. While I obtained an arc of Nonesuch from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
10/10
This is a wonderful, gripping read with the depth and sophistication of a literary read and the tension and pace of a well-told genre thriller. Iris is an ambitious young woman, who wants to become wealthy in her own right – as opposed to marrying money – despite the twin obstacles of gender and class. And given that sexism and classism still pose real impediments in 2026 for aspiring youngsters wishing to make their way in Britain, the barriers Iris face are formidable. I love that Spufford doesn’t tell us, so much as show Iris’s efforts to overcome these difficulties. She is mocked several times for her unnaturally posh accent, acquired by an elocution teacher to smooth out her Watford vowels and despite showing indepth knowledge of the stock market, her Manager is reluctant to promote her.
She also enjoys sex, which as an unmarried woman in a time when having a baby out of wedlock brought social ruin, is somewhat risky behaviour. That said, I didn’t roll my eyes at this detail because it made sense with the rest of Iris’s character, especially as she is estranged from most of her family for reasons that become clear during the story. I loved her intelligence, hyper-awareness of the people around her and her feisty nature. I also loved the slightly messy nature of her unfolding relationship with Geoff set against the strains imposed by the war – it’s beautifully done.
So I really cared about Iris and very much hoped that everything would pan out for her. What I didn’t expect was a sudden, catastrophic plot twist right at the end of the book, which leaves everything on a major cliff-hanger and me more than a bit desperate to know what happens next. Particularly as there’s no indication that a sequel is planned – frankly, I’m fervently hoping that book is written and in the final stages of editing, but making me wait for more than a handful of months must be counted as cruel and unusual punishment.
The other major character I haven’t yet discussed is London. The setting of the unfolding drama of both the war and Iris’s increasing awareness of uncanny influences being harnessed for nefarious reasons is vividly depicted. Spufford’s evident love for the city of London and awareness of its history spills from the pages in wonderful detail as the increasing hardship for people living there is charted. All in all, this was a memorable and wonderful read that lifted me out of my everyday life and took me to somewhere completely different. And yes – I’m delighted to say that I got my Connie Willis vibes, thank you very much. And that doesn’t happen very often, because writers of that quality are rare. Very highly recommended. While I obtained an arc of Nonesuch from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
10/10
February 27, 2026
Read courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. It's out at the start of March.
Firstly: be aware that this is the first of a duology. Did I know this going in? No. Did I think it would have an amazing conclusion? Yes. Did it have a great conclusion? Yes. Did I then turn the page to discover "To be concluded"? What do you think.
So it's the eve of World War 2, as the novel opens. Iris works in London, for a stockbroker; what she really wants is to be the stockbroker, but that's not happening for a woman in England in 1939. She's also a self-identified 'bad girl': she has relationships with men that are largely transactional - not strictly in the sex-work sense, but in the sense that she's definitely looking to get something out of it. Mostly she's looking to move up in the world, away from her suburban roots (it is England in 1939).
Then she meets Geoff, and then a weird Watcher follows her home, and then World War 2 starts, and then the Blitz begins. It's a lot.
This is most definitely a fantasy novel. There are "angelic beings" - for want of a better term (they're definitely not angelic in the sense of perfectly good, because I'm pretty sure that would rule out being sarcastic); there's a shadowy occult society, and magic is real if hard to access, and eventually there is Nonesuch - a place where, if you can access it, you might change history.
And yet. The fantastical elements are a surprisingly small part of the story. An enormous amount of the book is actually about surviving in London in 1939 and 1940. Everyone surviving - the descriptions of bomb shelters, and the lack of supplies, and general atmosphere of fear are exquisitely drawn. And Iris surviving - how she has lived up til now (perfectly well, if sometimes precarious), how that changes when she meets Geoff (much more complicated), various real and important moral quandaries. It's not that the fantastical elements were extraneous - I was always itching to go back to them - but the mundane sections didn't bore or worry me, or make me impatient. They're necessary and they're amazing.
I have never read anything by Spufford, and I was actually quite surprised to discover he's a he. Iris is drawn so convincingly, and sympathetically, with determination and ambition and unwelcome vulnerability; she's so angry when she's vulnerable but never made to seem lesser to the reader when she is - I just assumed it was a woman writing her. So that was a shock, but takes nothing away from Iris. She's vital and alive, she makes bad decisions and sometimes she makes them right, she's brave and she has to make real decisions about morality, and living with her brain and ambition in 1939 must have truly sucked.
If I could hold my breath until the sequel arrives I would consider it, but that would be stupid. I'm so excited that I am really quite nervous to see where it goes.
Firstly: be aware that this is the first of a duology. Did I know this going in? No. Did I think it would have an amazing conclusion? Yes. Did it have a great conclusion? Yes. Did I then turn the page to discover "To be concluded"? What do you think.
So it's the eve of World War 2, as the novel opens. Iris works in London, for a stockbroker; what she really wants is to be the stockbroker, but that's not happening for a woman in England in 1939. She's also a self-identified 'bad girl': she has relationships with men that are largely transactional - not strictly in the sex-work sense, but in the sense that she's definitely looking to get something out of it. Mostly she's looking to move up in the world, away from her suburban roots (it is England in 1939).
Then she meets Geoff, and then a weird Watcher follows her home, and then World War 2 starts, and then the Blitz begins. It's a lot.
This is most definitely a fantasy novel. There are "angelic beings" - for want of a better term (they're definitely not angelic in the sense of perfectly good, because I'm pretty sure that would rule out being sarcastic); there's a shadowy occult society, and magic is real if hard to access, and eventually there is Nonesuch - a place where, if you can access it, you might change history.
And yet. The fantastical elements are a surprisingly small part of the story. An enormous amount of the book is actually about surviving in London in 1939 and 1940. Everyone surviving - the descriptions of bomb shelters, and the lack of supplies, and general atmosphere of fear are exquisitely drawn. And Iris surviving - how she has lived up til now (perfectly well, if sometimes precarious), how that changes when she meets Geoff (much more complicated), various real and important moral quandaries. It's not that the fantastical elements were extraneous - I was always itching to go back to them - but the mundane sections didn't bore or worry me, or make me impatient. They're necessary and they're amazing.
I have never read anything by Spufford, and I was actually quite surprised to discover he's a he. Iris is drawn so convincingly, and sympathetically, with determination and ambition and unwelcome vulnerability; she's so angry when she's vulnerable but never made to seem lesser to the reader when she is - I just assumed it was a woman writing her. So that was a shock, but takes nothing away from Iris. She's vital and alive, she makes bad decisions and sometimes she makes them right, she's brave and she has to make real decisions about morality, and living with her brain and ambition in 1939 must have truly sucked.
If I could hold my breath until the sequel arrives I would consider it, but that would be stupid. I'm so excited that I am really quite nervous to see where it goes.
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