THE NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB AND A SUNDAY TIMES SUMMER READS PICK 2025

A WORLD ON THE BRINK OF WAR. AN AFFAIR ON THE EDGE OF SCANDAL.

‘A riveting tale of politics, war and erotic obsession’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘His most enthralling yet . . . extraordinary’ NICHOLAS COLERIDGE, INDEPENDENT

Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe.

In London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley – aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless – is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state.

As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer is assigned to investigate a leak of top secret documents – and suddenly what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that will alter the course of political history.

Seamlessly weaving fact and fiction in a way that no writer does better, Precipice is the thrilling new novel from Robert Harris.

'The king of the page-turning thriller' i Paper
'Harris's cleverness, judgment and eye for detail are second to none' Sunday Times
'Harris writes with a skill and ingenuity that few other novelists can match' Financial Times
'Harris is a master of historical fiction, a compelling author who brings to life the recent and ancient past' TLS

Robert Harris, Sunday Times bestseller, May 2024

An endlessly rich and inventive historical fiction epic from the author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, set amid the political intrigue, scientific revolution and religious conflict of 17th-century Europe. As philosophers, adventurers and spies navigate a rapidly changing world, fortunes are made and empires reshaped.

‘Genius … You’ll wish it were longer.’ Time magazine

‘An astonishing achievement.’ Sunday Telegraph

WINNER OF THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD

---------

Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, moves among the era's greatest minds, as new ideas challenge old certainties, and where the world can be changed overnight.

The adventurer ‘Half-Cocked Jack’ escapes the streets of London and pursues fortune and infamy while the pox slowly tightens its grip.

And Eliza, rescued from a Turkish harem, reinvents herself as a spy, financier and pawn of the powerful, as the age of finance is born.

'Neal Stephenson rewrites history – for the dark prince of hacker fiction, looking backward is another way of seeing the future.’ Wired

The first book in the Baroque Cycle.