A stunningly good debut novel … Wood writes with vigour, precision and intensity, with a story that will keep readers up all night.

THE BELLWETHER REVIVALS renders the cruelties and frailties of genius with acuity and tenderness, exploring the naive sophistication of bright young minds, the moral immunity granted to coteries of privilege, and the true nature of mastery in art. Seductive, resonant, and disquieting, Benjamin Wood's novel captures strains and cadences, qualities of music that are rarely rendered except in sound.

Read it. Quite a debut.

‘From the moment young Oscar follows the organ music into King's College chapel, I was ready to follow the talented Benjamin Wood anywhere. Wood writes beautifully about music, hypnotism, old people and the lush landscapes of Cambridge. And his intricate plot carries both Oscar and the reader to a place where the stakes, finally, are nothing less than life and death. In the tradition of THE SECRET HISTORY, THE BELLWETHER REVIVALS explores the world of privileged youth to wonderful effect.

Oh, how I loved this novel! I was drawn in from the very first sentence and pretty much didn’t put it down until I reached the last. This is the kind of story that makes you want to hole up under the covers—with a box of cookies and a mug of tea—and not come out until you’ve uncovered the mysteries at its heart. And those mysteries that stay with you long after you reluctantly emerge from bed. I find myself constantly thinking of Wood’s characters—wonderful, surprising Oscar Lowe and those beautiful, doomed Bellwethers. It reminded me, more than anything, of Donna Tartt’s THE SECRET HISTORY, another novel that utterly consumed me, body and soul.