The Young Accomplice

'Britain's answer to Donna Tartt' Sunday Times 
 
'A huge talent' Hilary Mantel 
 
'Was this how it was going to be for ever? Wrapping things for customers in womenswear, no conversation. Polishing the counters so her face reflected in the brass and sweeping floors at closing time until the boss said she could leave. How much worse off would she be if she went driving with a stranger for a while?' 
 
When sixteen-year-old Joyce Savigear absconds from work to go out with a man she barely knows, she hopes a new, exciting life is just beginning. 
 
But, two years later, she is waiting on a railway station in the tranquil English countryside. It's the summer of 1952 and she and her younger brother Charlie have just been released from borstal. Another fresh start awaits - but can Joyce ever outrun the darkness of her past? 
 
'What a writer' Richard Osman 
 
'An involving tale of revenge and responsibility, which, while it devastates, also tells us that new lives can be built among the ashes' FT 
 
'The Young Accomplice shows the difference between a book that slides down the surface of things, and one that digs its claws into you and sticks there' The Times

Highly accomplished . . . It's idealistic, gripping and beautifully textured, moving with great power. It's rare to see such attention to character and setting, and I think Wood is one of Britain's best young writers

This satisfyingly old fashioned- feeling novel from a youngish author strikingly conveys its 1950s rural setting, and has a grim pull of foreboding . . . Benjamin Wood's perspective-shifting novel weaves elements of 
thriller, romance and coming-of-age to gripping, memorable effect

A treat . . . Wood's daring narrative decisions show he hasn't lost the old spark, but has just added to it with his new repertoire. What, it asks, are the opportunities available to someone who wants to leap clear of their wrong beginnings, when everything that hurts has already been cut?

Benjamin Wood knows how to generate tension, makes lively characters you can see and hear, and writes about rural England in a sensitive, considered way that doesn't stray into the nostalgic. A huge talent

Wood is a seriously talented writer, able to enter the minds of his characters with eerie precision. The Young Accomplice is an involving tale of revenge and responsibility, which, while it devastates, also tells us that new lives can be built among the ashes

[Wood's] best novel yet . . . [he] deserves to be far better known

A British novelist who deserves more attention than he has had . . . Wood blends storytelling punch with literary sensibility . . . The Young Accomplice shows the difference between a book that slides down the surface of things, and one that digs it claws into you and sticks there

Benjamin Wood is a beautiful writer and this is his best novel yet, both gripping and unputdownable. Like people in Thomas Hardy, his characters surge from the page, and the mystery unfolds with a sureness seldom seen in contemporary British fiction

His most original [novel] yet . . . The Young Accomplice has already been compared to Thomas Hardy novels and there are echoes of Tess of the d'Urbervilles in the story of a vulnerable young woman whose past catches up with her. Wood is also wonderful on the intricacies of love and architecture as a means of enriching people's lives. It's a novel that feels as if it has been imagined with slow and tender care - and I suspect it will be cherished by readers for a long time

With deceptive ease, the books weaves elements of crime, mystery, love story and coming of age . . . a well-wrought novel whose pleasure is in each careful scene, moment and sentence

Blown away by A Station On The Path To Somewhere Better . . . Dark and disturbing, but wise, moving and beautifully written. Am immediately going to seek out his other books now. What a writer

Richard Osman on A Station On The Path To Somewhere Better

Benjamin Wood is building a sublime body of work. This masterful, suspenseful novel is his best yet. It swallows you up. I love it

The Times, on A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better

A resounding achievement . . . Rich, beautiful and written by an author of great depth and resource

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

Inside cover printing (front) 
'Benjamin Wood's perspective-shifting novel weaves elements of thriller, romance and coming of age to gripping, memorable effect' Sunday Times, Best Books for the Year 
 
'Highly accomplished . . . idealistic, gripping and beautifully textured, moving with great power. It's rare to see such attention to character and setting . . . Wood is one of Britain's best young writers' Spectator, Best Books of 2022 
 
'Benjamin Wood knows how to generate tension, makes lively characters you can see and hear, and writes about rural England in a sensitive, considered way that doesn't stray into the nostalgic' Hilary Mantel 
 
'Benjamin Wood is a beautiful writer and this is his best novel yet, both gripping and unputdownable. Like people in Thomas Hardy, his characters surge from the page, and the mystery unfolds with a sureness seldom seen in contemporary British fiction' Andrew O'Hagan 
 
'With deceptive ease, the book weaves elements of crime, mystery, love story and coming of age . . . a well-wrought novel whose pleasure is in each careful scene, moment and sentence' Irish Times

Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. Seascraper is his fifth novel. His previous works have been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2014, he won France's Prix du Roman Fnac. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at King's College, London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.

Was this how it was going to be for ever? Wrapping things for customers in womenswear, no conversation. Polishing the counters so her face reflected in the brass and sweeping floors at closing time until the boss said she could leave. How much worse off would she be if she went driving with a stranger for a while?' 
 
When sixteen-year-old Joyce Savigear absconds from work to go out with a man she barely knows, she hopes a new, exciting life is just beginning. 
 
But, two years later, she is waiting on a railway station in the tranquil English countryside. It's the summer of 1952 and she and her younger brother Charlie have just been released from borstal. Another fresh start awaits - but can Joyce ever outrun the darkness of her past?

Benjamin Wood

A quiet, unassuming book about honest work and modest dreams, about sons and their duty, and those brief, wonderful moments when we glimpse the possibility of living a different life. Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written

One of the finest British novelists of his generation

Wood is up there with the very best... he packs more poetry into his opening paragraph than many a Booker-winner achieves in their entire oeuvre

The wonder of this book is how Wood delivers so much in a few words…Seascraper reads like the forging of a new myth: one about how an alternative life is possible, and may even be starting to happen inside you already

Wood conjures wonders from this unlikely material in a tale so richly atmospheric you can almost taste the tang of brine and inhale the sea fog

Seascraper is powerful, poignant and poetic. I can’t recommend it enough

Benjamin Myers, award-winning author of Cuddy

Seascraper shimmers, salt-flecked and rippling. It swells with tense, memorable moments... poignant, authentic and hopeful.

It is a sensuous treat, this novel. So much care has been given to every detail – of shrimps and sea mists and sinkpits, of work and music. A language of the sea washes over every page

Ross Raisin, award-winning author of God's Own Country

Benjamin Wood has been quietly building a reputation for intricate yet impressively distinct novels, and Seascraper might be the most fully formed yet…What Wood does brilliantly here is grapple with the push and pull of family duty, work, upbringing and the possibility of an entirely different life’ Ben East, Observer

a wrong-footing and enormously compelling coming-of-age narrative

Can only add to Wood’s reputation as one of Britain’s most engaging contemporary novelists…Wood’s fifth novel is an extraordinary evocation of the liminal world caught between land and sea

Benjamin Wood is a singular voice. Intense, original, unforgettable

I loved this hugely atmospheric story and its tender portrait of quiet Thomas Flett, a young man who secretly longs to make music, but whose dreams and prospects are constrained by his hard life, local community, upbringing and background. Then a passing American gives him – and us – a brief glimpse into what it means to aspire for something more. Haunting and beautiful, this is a very special novel indeed.

Sarah Easter Collins, author of Things Don't Break on Their Own

We bang on about Benjamin Wood almost as much as we do about Nathan Hill, so it's good that the Booker judges share our love for him. His fifth novel is quieter and stiller than his others, but just as good. It's about a young man who catches shrimp for a living, but has a hidden desire he hardly dares to think about in case it fails. And it comes with a free song. In two words: Short. Brilliant

In Benjamin Wood's quiet but immensely atmospheric Seascraper, a young man plies his grandfather's trade of 'shanking', scraping the seashore for shrimp in an England that is moving on without him. Muted but precise prose burrows into his hopes and dreams for a tale that resonates far beyond the telling

Every detail, every scene, fits intricately together in a story about all the big things and all the everyday things: love, ambition, the past’s hold on the future…Seascraper reads like the forging of a new myth: one about how an alternative life is possible, and may even be starting to happen inside you already.

As in much of Wood’s writing to date, his use of language in this latest novel is compelling in its lyrical discipline – exact, never ostentatious. Seascraper can only add to his reputation as one of Britain’s most engaging contemporary novelists.

Britain's answer to Donna Tartt... a talent to treasure

Benjamin Wood’s Booker-longlisted novel about a young shrimp scraper is easily one of the most beautifully written books of the year. The 44-year-old Stockport-born author specialises in working-class loners who are fascinated by human creativity but get dragged down by treachery, madness or something from their past… A strange, utterly engrossing tale

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS 2025 
 
'Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written' Douglas Stuart 
 
Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.

Benjamin Wood

Praise for Seascraper

A quiet, unassuming book about honest work and modest dreams, about sons and their duty, and those brief, wonderful moments when we glimpse the possibility of living a different life. Benjamin Wood is a magnifice ...

One of the finest British novelists of his generation

Wood is up there with the very best... he packs more poetry into his opening paragraph than many a Booker-winner achieves in their entire oeuvre

A quiet, unassuming book about honest work and modest dreams, about sons and their duty, and those brief, wonderful moments when we glimpse the possibility of living a different life. Benjamin Wood is a magnifice ...

One of the finest British novelists of his generation

Wood is up there with the very best... he packs more poetry into his opening paragraph than many a Booker-winner achieves in their entire oeuvre

A quiet, unassuming book about honest work and modest dreams, about sons and their duty, and those brief, wonderful moments when we glimpse the possibility of living a different life. Benjamin Wood is a magnifice ...

One of the finest British novelists of his generation

Wood is up there with the very best... he packs more poetry into his opening paragraph than many a Booker-winner achieves in their entire oeuvre

Books by Benjamin Wood

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