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Sceptre is the literary imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, publishing international fiction and non-fiction that is not only entertaining but also stimulating, provocative, sometimes challenging and always superbly written. We know time is short, so why would you waste it? That’s why we spend our time carefully choosing only a small number of new books to publish each year, ones we believe will be wor
th your time reading and that you’ll want to keep on your shelves (or on your e-reader) and press into the hands of your friends. We love to discover new voices and nurture their talent over the long term – authors we’ve launched and continue to publish include David Mitchell, Siri Hustvedt, Andrew Miller, Jake Arnott, Jill Dawson and Glen David Gold, while more recent debutants include Ned Beauman (a Granta Best of Young British Novelist), Emma Henderson (shortlisted for the Orange Prize), Kevin Powers (winner of the Guardian First Book Award), Fiona McFarlane (shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award), Fredrik Backman (a Richard & Judy pick) and Anna Smaill (longlisted for the Man Booker). We’ve also been joined by authors who began their careers elsewhere like Chris Cleave, Clare Morrall, Peter Ho Davies, Steve Toltz and Sjón, and in non-fiction by Tristan Gooley, Rolf Dobelli, Rod Judkins and Iain Martin. Last but not least, we are proud of our long-standing authors such as Melvyn Bragg and Thomas Keneally, whose Booker Prize-winning novel Schindler’s Ark was one of the first books on the list when Sceptre began life as Hodder & Stoughton’s literary paperback imprint in 1986.
‘Powerful and inspiring’ GRAZIA
Plucky fourteen-year-old Adunni is in Lagos, excited to finally enrol in school. Having escaped her rural village in a desperate bid to seek a better future, she's found refuge with Tia, a kind and brilliant woman on her own troubled journey of self-discovery.
But it's not so simple to run away from your past. . .
And So I Roar by Abi Daré is out now.
If you could shape the perfect man... would you? 👀💛
Publishing 6 February 2025, BLOB: A Love Story by Maggie Su is a sharp, strange and very funny debut novel about growing up, f*cking up and learning how to be a real person.
Pre-order your copy here: lnk.to/Blob-HB
Vi Liu's life is a mess. Having dropped out of college, she's stuck in a job she hates at a local hotel. Her ex-boyfriend has blocked her and she's lashing out at her family and co-workers.
One night, drunk outside a drag club, she stumbles across a mysterious sentient blob. She takes it home, where she feeds it a diet of sugary cereal and reality TV. Slowly, she realises that she can shape the blob into her perfect man: someone attentive, outgoing and with more than a passing resemblance to Ryan Gosling.
But is Bob the blob really the answer to all her problems, or a catalyst for further disaster...?
We are so thrilled that FIRE WEATHER by John Vaillant is on the 2024 Conservation Writing Shortlist for the The Wainwright Prize! ✏️🔥
Fire Weather is out in paperback in 2 weeks: lnk.to/FireWeather-PB
We are absolutely delighted that Charlotte Wood’s masterful and fearless novel STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL has been longlisted for The Booker Prize 2024!
Thanks very much to The Booker Prizes judges Edmund de Waal, Sara Collins, Justine Jordan, Yiyun Li and Nitin Sawhney for selecting this incredibly special book.
Today we are incredibly proud to publish STRANGE RELATIONS: Masculinity, Sexuality and Art in Mid-Century America!
Get your copy here: lnk.to/StrangeRelations-HB
From Forward Prize shortlisted poet Ralf Webb, Strange Relations is an investigation of masculinity, bisexuality and q***rness, routed through the lives and works of four mid-century writers: James Baldwin, John Cheever, Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers.
💚 'Wise, humane, hopeful, and exquisitely written. A moving and empowering book' - Will Tosh, author of STRAIGHT ACTING
🤍 'Exquisite prose... new and necessary and exciting' – Lauren Aimee Curtis, author of STRANGERS AT THE PORT
💙 'Remarkable... entertaining... deft... moving... refreshing' – Daily Telegraph
HIGHWAY THIRTEEN by Fiona McFarlane is out now!
Get your copy here: lnk.to/HighwayThirteen-HB
'This Möbius strip of linked stories bends and twists the crime genre until it is barely recognisable... the result is a riveting study of human nature'
– Geraldine Brooks
'Clever and engrossing'
– Mail on Sunday
'Addictively engaging, profoundly serious fiction from an underappreciated master'
– Kirkus, starred review
Happy to our UK readers! If anyone needs us, we’ll be re-reading our copies of Going Home by Tom Lamont 🧡
..and since it's , why not get your copy from Bookshop.org UK?
https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/going-home-tom-lamont/7607944?ean=9781399727495
We are bursting with pride today to publish STRAIGHT ACTING, Will Tosh's irresistible portrait of Shakespeare's many q***r lives 🌈💖💛
Get your copy here: lnk.to/StraightActing-HB
Was Shakespeare gay? The answer is both simpler and more complex than you might think…
'Engrossing, enlightening and hugely entertaining'
– SARAH WATERS, author of Fingersmith
'Brilliant - so vivid and so sharp, fantastically clever and consistently fascinating'
– KATHERINE RUNDELL, author of Super-Infinite
Out today in sunny new paperback: OKAY DAYS, the smart, sexy and spiky modern love story from debut novelist Jenny Mustard 💛
Get your copy here: lnk.to/OkayDays-PB
Sam is 28, Swedish, carefree and chaotic. Doing a work placement in London over the course of three sticky summer months, she falls hard for Lucas, a man she first met as a teenager.
Lucas, 27, sensitive and calm, is trying to get a foothold in the adult world while struggling to hold the pieces of his life together. Sam is a gorgeous distraction.
But you can only avoid reality for so long, and both Sam and Lucas know their relationship can't last. Nobody can be this happy forever, surely? When is okay good enough? And what are we willing to lose in the search for a life that is much better than just okay?
Okay Days tells the story of the rise and fall of Sam and Lucas's affection for each other, while looking unflinchingly at male body dysmorphia, women's reproductive rights, and the pitfalls of modern love.
Wishing Tom Lamont the happiest of publication days for his funny and beautiful novel GOING HOME 🧡
Get your copy here: linktr.ee/goinghome_tomlamont
'A spirit-lifting debut'
DAVID MITCHELL
'I adored every moment'
BELLA MACKIE
'A lyrical, hypnotic delight'
KATHERINE HEINY
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Local boy Téo Erskine is back in the north London suburb of his youth, visiting his father - stubborn, selfish, complicated Vic. Things have changed for Téo: he's got a steady job, a brand-new car and a London flat all concrete and glass, with a sliver of a river view.
Except, underneath the surface, not much has changed at all. He's still the boy seeking his father's approval; the young man playing late-night poker with his best friend, unreliable, infuriating Ben Mossam; the one still desperately in love with the enigmatic Lia Woods.
Lia's life, on the other hand, has been transformed: now a single mum to two-year-old Joel, she doesn't have time for anyone - not even herself.
When the unthinkable happens, Joel finds himself at the centre of an odd constellation of men - Téo, Vic, Ben - none of whom is fully equipped to look after him, but whose strange, tentative attempts at love might just be enough to offer him a new place to call home.
Out in paperback today, REMEMBER, MR SHARMA by A. P. Firdaus is a heart-soaring story about a mother's love, inter-generational trauma and one boy's journey to uncover his family's hidden history…
Get your copy here: https://brnw.ch/21wK3Ep
📚 A BBC2 Between The Covers Book Club Pick for 2023
📚 'A moving story about the past and the shadow it forever leaves on the present' – Huma Qureshi
📚 'Sublime . . . A fantastic debut from a promising new literary voice' – Nick Bradley
📚 'A magical tale of a troubled family' – Daily Telegraph
Happy paperback publication day to MONSTERS by Claire Dederer! 💘
Get your copy here: lnk.to/Monsters-PB
Wildly smart and insightful, Monsters is an exhilarating attempt to understand our relationship with art and the artist in the twenty-first century.
What are we to do with the love we have for great art made by bad people? How are we, as fans, to reckon with the biographical choices of the artists whose work sustains us?
✨ 'How rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read' – MEGAN NOLAN
✨ 'An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life' – JENNY OFFILL
Happy paperback publication day to the stunning memoir SOME OF US JUST FALL by Polly Atkin 🌼🌊💜
'Mesmeric' - Caro Giles
'Dazzling' - Freya Bromley
'Extraordinary' - Daisy Hay
Get your signed paperback here: https://brnw.ch/SOUJFSigned
Standard paperbacks: https://brnw.ch/SOUJF_PB
Who is Juliet Capulet?
- Daughter of Verona 🏛
- Lovestruck Teenager 💘
- Romantic Icon 💁♀️
- Tragic Heroine 🗡
- Rebel ✊
A cultural, historical, and literary exploration of the ultimate romantic heroine, SEARCHING FOR JULIET by Sophie Duncan shows us why Juliet is for now, for ever, for everyone.
Out today in paperback! ✨
lnk.to/SearchingForJuliet-PB
'An astonishing tour-de-force'
MARION TURNER
'Thrilling'
GUARDIAN
'Illuminating... as vital and provocative as the character herself'
LITERARY REVIEW
There is something creeping at the edge of your vision, lingering somewhere just out of focus. All it would take is to let your mind wander, to let it come into view...
, the debut novel by award-winning poet Phoebe Stuckes, is out now 🦊
lnk.to/DeadAnimals-HB
💚 'Wonderfully chilling... a delectable slice of defiantly q***r menace'
Leon Craig
💗 'A brilliant, chilling, furious novel. Real, relatable, and unputdownable'
Rachel Long
💚 'A brutal, blistering horror story about precarious lives. Part Eileen, part Carrie. I gulped it down'
Clare Pollard
From Charlotte Wood, the bestselling author of The Weekend, STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL is a fearless and unflinching novel that explores forgiveness, grief and the complicated beauty of female friendship.
Out now in hardback! 🐁💚
https://lnk.to/StoneYardDevotional
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‘Both profound and addictively entertaining’
CLARE CHAMBERS
‘Beautiful, strange and otherworldly’
PAULA HAWKINS
‘Subtly powerful and utterly engrossing’
CLAIRE FULLER
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Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.
But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past...
Behold this stunning new edition of Cloud Atlas, released to celebrate 20 years since the first publication of David Mitchell’s incredible and dazzling novel.
Publishing 11 April 2024, this special edition is signed, with a new afterword by the author and a new introduction by Gabrielle Zevin. It features four-colour endpapers, digitally printed page edges, foil design on the board and a ribbon marker.
Copies are extremely limited – pre-order now to avoid disappointment! lnk.to/CloudAtlas20
Federico Andornino, Sceptre Executive Publisher, says:
‘There is quite simply no book like Cloud Atlas. A work of literature that defies classification, this is a novel that really shouldn’t work: it’s big, sprawling, uninterested in rules or tropes, dazzling in its ambition and dizzying in its scope. And yet, in the hands of one of contemporary literature’s geniuses, it becomes a triumph of the imagination. Over the past twenty years readers all over the world – myself very much included – have been seduced by the interlinked stories at the heart of Cloud Atlas and it felt right to celebrate this milestone by republishing it in a new, stunning edition. Sceptre has always been David’s home and we feel incredibly lucky to be able to celebrate this special anniversary with him.’
WAIT. Was Shakespeare gay?
The answer is both simpler and more complex than you might think...
STRAIGHT ACTING by Will Tosh is a surprising and captivating portrait of Shakespeare's q***r lives – his own and those in his plays and poems.
Pre-order now: lnk.to/StraightActing-HB
🔥 OUT NOW 🔥
Toby Lloyd's unforgettable, heart-stopping debut novel FERVOUR is finally here!
This is The Secret History meets horror meets Jonathan Safran Foer - with a dash of The Royal Tenenbaums...
Get your copy: https://lnk.to/Fervour-HB
Feast your eyes upon the stunning Independent Bookshop Edition of You Are Here!
All copies are signed by the author and feature an exclusive map colourway on the endpapers. They also include a very special letter from David Nicholls Author himself 💙💛
Pre-order here: linktr.ee/youareheredavidnicholls or check availability with your local indie bookshop!
Get ready for the new unforgettable love story from David Nicholls Author, the bestselling author of global phenomenon ONE DAY.
YOU ARE HERE arrives 23 April 💙💛
Pre-order your copy: linktr.ee/youareheredavidnicholls
We are SO thrilled to announce the tour!
Take a look at the packed schedule of events with David Nicholls Author taking place in Spring 2024 ✨
Get your tickets here: linktr.ee/youareheredavidnicholls
Every living being throughout history, across time and geography, has gazed up at the same moon... 🌕
OUR MOON by Rebecca Boyle is out in the UK today!
Get your copy now: lnk.to/OurMoon-HB
This is a stunning cultural and scientific history of the Moon, from prehistoric archaeology to the most recent technological and scientific research today.
It tells the dazzling story of how the Moon has shaped life as we know it, fuelled dramatic change across the globe and could be the key to humanity's future.
We can't wait for this adaptation of Jaroslav Kalfař’s novel SPACEMAN OF BOHEMIA – hitting Netflix on 1 March! 👀
What's in a cloud?
What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard?
And what exactly is El Niño...?
Elliot Rappaport, a captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather is the difference between life and death.
From the icy seas of Greenland to the turbulent waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, Reading The Glass combines science and memoir to reveal the remarkable story of how weather has shaped our oceans, our history and ourselves.
Out now in paperback: https://brnw.ch/21wFQlR 🌊
No.1 Irish bestselling author Anne Griffin's stunning novel The Island of Longing is just 99p on Kindle for a limited time!
'Stunning... I loved it' Liz Nugent
'A beautiful, emotive mystery' Chris Whitaker
Get it here: https://brnw.ch/21wFF8A
When is okay good enough? And what are we willing to lose in the search for a life that is much better than just okay?
You can get , the stunning debut novel from Jenny Mustard, for just 99p on Kindle for a very limited time – don't miss it! 💛
👉🏼 https://brnw.ch/OkayDaysEbook
Alexandria, a city drawn in sand.
Inspired by the tales of Homer & his own ambitions, Alexander the Great dreamed of a city. He did not live to see Alexandria built, but his vision of a sparkling metropolis still stands today.
Out now in hardback.
We are completely thrilled for John Vaillant and his much deserved The Baillie Gifford Prize win for FIRE WEATHER 🔥
This book is a gripping account of this century's most intense urban fire, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between humanity and fire's fierce energy.
Thank you so much to The Baillie Gifford Prize and the judges Frederick Studemann, Andrea Wulf, Arifa Akbar, Ruth Scurr, Tanjil Rashid and Andrew Haldane for this incredible award.
Praise for Alexandria:
'A cornucopia of fascinating details, every page revealing a new delight' - Paul Strathern, author of Ten Cities That Led the World
Out now in hardback 👉🏽 https://brnw.ch/21wEngL
Carmelite House
London
EC4Y0DZ
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From Charlotte Wood, the bestselling author of The Weekend, STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL is a fearless and unflinching novel that explores forgiveness, grief and the complicated beauty of female friendship. Out now in hardback! 🐁💚 https://lnk.to/StoneYardDevotional ------------------------------------ ‘Both profound and addictively entertaining’ CLARE CHAMBERS ‘Beautiful, strange and otherworldly’ PAULA HAWKINS ‘Subtly powerful and utterly engrossing’ CLAIRE FULLER ------------------------------------ Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident. But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past...
🔥 OUT NOW 🔥 Toby Lloyd's unforgettable, heart-stopping debut novel FERVOUR is finally here! This is The Secret History meets horror meets Jonathan Safran Foer - with a dash of The Royal Tenenbaums... Get your copy: https://lnk.to/Fervour-HB
Get ready for the new unforgettable love story from David Nicholls Author, the bestselling author of global phenomenon ONE DAY. YOU ARE HERE arrives 23 April 💙💛 Pre-order your copy: linktr.ee/youareheredavidnicholls
