The Ecliptic

From the 2025 Booker-longlisted author of Seascraper

One of the finest British novelists of his generationTimes

A huge talent Hilary Mantel

Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written Douglas Stuart

What a writer Richard Osman

Shortlisted for the Sunday Times PFD Young Writer of the Year Award and the Encore Prize

Stunning... Wood has created one of the most moving and human characters in recent fiction Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

The mesmerising new novel from the acclaimed author of The Bellwether Revivals: a rich and immersive story of love, obsession, creativity and disintegration.

On a forested island off the coast of Istanbul stands Portmantle, a refuge for beleaguered artists. There, a curious assembly of painters, architects, writers and musicians strive to restore their faded talents. Elspeth Knell Conroy is a celebrated painter who has fled the dizzying art scene of 1960s London; on the island, she spends her nights wrestling with her elusive masterpiece. Then a disaffected teenager named Fullerton arrives at the refuge and disrupts its routines. He is plagued by nightmares that steer him into danger, and Knell is left to pick apart the chilling mystery: where did the boy come from, what is The Ecliptic, and how does it relate to their abandoned lives in England?

Praise for The Ecliptic:

A novelist to watchThe Times

A resounding achievement . . . Rich, beautiful and written by an author of great depth and resourceEdward Docx, Guardian

Full of suspense and beautifully written, superbly imagined and constructed . . . A terrifically gripping and playful bookSunday Times

Exhilarating, earthy, cerebral, frank and unflinching . . . A masterfully paced and suspenseful readIndependent

A rich, intricate and layered workObserver

Haunts the imagination long after the final pageIndependent on Sunday