Seascraper Novel

Seascraper

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE “Seascraper shimmers, salt-flecked and rippling. It swells with tense, memorable moments…Poignant, authentic, and hopeful.” —The Spectator “In two words: Short. Brilliant.” —The Times (London) Twenty-year-old Thomas Flett lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, Northern England, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the drizzly shore to scrape for shrimp, and spends the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and sea-scum, pining for his neighbor, Joan Wyeth, and playing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but this remains a private dream. Then a mysterious American arrives in town and enlists Thomas’s help in finding a perfect location for his next movie. Though skeptical at first, Thomas learns to trust the stranger, Edgar, and, shaken from the drudgery of his days by the promise of Hollywood glamour, begins to see a different future for himself. But how much of what Edgar claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas? Haunting, timeless, and stunningly atmospheric, Seascraper tells the story of a quiet existence upturned over the span of one day, and a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows. “A small wonder...Wood delivers so much in few words...reads like the forging of a new myth.” —Financial Times “Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written.” —Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize–winning author of Shuggie Bain

Adventure

The Bellwether Revivals

'A stunningly good debut ... that will keep readers up all night' Steven Galloway, author of the Cellist of Sarajevo 'The novel has at its lodestone Brideshead Revisited. Donna Tartt's The Secret History is also in the DNA here ... Readers will find themselves transfixed by this richly drawn cast of characters' Independent Bright, bookish Oscar Lowe has grown to love the quiet routine of his life as a care assistant at a Cambridge nursing home, until the fateful day when he is lured into King's College chapel by the otherworldly sound of an organ. There he meets and falls in love with Iris Bellwether and her privileged, eccentric clique, led by her brother Eden. A troubled but charismatic music prodigy, Eden convinces his sister and their friends to participate in a series of disturbing experiments. However, as the line between genius and madness begins to blur, Oscar fears that danger could await them all ... Benjamin Wood's brilliant debut novel will delight fans of The Secret History and Never Let Me Go. Praise for The Bellwether Revivals: 'Read it. Quite a debut' Patrick Neate 'Suffused with intelligence and integrity' Guardian 'Effortlessly vivid ... Wood's confident, sometimes creepy novel draws you in ... and then, once you're inside, holds on, ever tightening the grip' Independent on Sunday 'There's more than a hint of Donna Tartt's The Secret History about this novel … highly effective' Daily Mail