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  • Published: 21 March 2023
  • ISBN: 9781787460966
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $22.99

The Second Sleep

From the Sunday Times bestselling author




FROM THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR

WHAT IF YOUR FUTURE LIES IN THE PAST?

'One word: wonderful. Two words: compulsive reading. Three words: buy it tomorrow. Four words: tonight, if possible.' STEPHEN KING

'A thoroughly absorbing, page-turning narrative.' SUNDAY TIMES

'Genuinely thrilling.' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Dusk is gathering as a young priest, Christopher Fairfax, rides across a silent land.
He must arrive at a remote village in the wilds of Exmoor before night falls. He's lost and he's becoming anxious as he slowly picks his way across a countryside strewn with the ancient artefacts of a civilisation that seems to have ended in cataclysm.

What Fairfax cannot know is that, in the days and weeks to come, everything he believes in will be tested as he uncovers a secret that is as dangerous as it is terrifying . . .
'[Harris] takes us on a thrilling ride while serving up serious food for thought.' SUNDAY EXPRESS

'A truly surprising future-history thriller. Fabulous, really.' EVENING STANDARD

'The book's real power lies in its between-the-lines warning that our embrace of the internet represents some kind of sleepwalk into oblivion. It's a provocative, tub-thumping sci-fi of which H. G. Wells might have been proud.' DAILY MAIL

'Harris' latest work intelligently warps historical fiction and tackles issues of religion, science and the apocalypse in the process. As he flexes his imagination, you will be left pondering as often as you are page-turning.' HERALD

'A brilliantly imaginative thriller' READER'S DIGEST

There are currently two different covers and possibly a mix of stock until December 2022. They will be assigned at random.

#1 Bestseller in the UK, Sunday Times, September 2019

  • Published: 21 March 2023
  • ISBN: 9781787460966
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Robert Harris

Robert Harris is the author of thirteen bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave, Munich and The Second Sleep. Several of his books have been filmed, including The Ghost, which was directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into forty languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby. His next book, V2, is coming out in autumn 2020.

Also by Robert Harris

See all

Praise for The Second Sleep

A truly surprising future-history thriller. Fabulous, really.

David Sexton, Evening Standard

A thoroughly absorbing, page-turning narrative in which the author, with his customary storytelling skills, pulls us ever deeper into the imaginative world he has created. It [also] poses challenging questions about the meaning of the past, the idea of progress and the stability of civilisation. It is a fine addition to Harris’s diverse body of work.

Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

A return to the type of high-concept novel that made his name . . . [T]he writing is elegant and pacy. The characters are fleshed out and the plot zips along.

Antonia Senior, The Times

Harris is rightly praised as the master of the intelligent thriller. Genuinely thrilling, wonderfully conceived and entirely without preaching, it probes the nature of history, of collective memory and forgetting, and exposes the fragility of modern civilisation.

Harry Sidebottom, Daily Telegraph, 5 stars *****

Reading Robert Harris’s historical thrillers feels like attending a Simon Schama lecture on a roller-coaster – you come away with a new perspective on history while feeling dizzy with excitement . . . In The Second Sleep he takes us on a thrilling ride while serving up serious food for thought . . . I doubt there is a living writer who is better at simultaneously making readers’ adrenaline pump while their brains whirr.

Charlotte Heathcote, Sunday Express, 4 stars ****

It is a strange premise for a thriller, but Robert Harris is such a wily old hand that it is a pleasure to accompany him on his time travels.

Mail on Sunday

With a story of forbidden love joining larger themes, this vividly imagined, brilliantly clever novel is – as you’d expect from the author of Fatherland and Archangel an absolutely class act.

Deirdre O’Brien, Sunday Mirror

Harris weaves a smart, intriguing story that cements his reputation as, in the words of the cover, 'master of the intelligent thriller'. He's that perfect combination of equally fine writer and storyteller; the narrative is satisfying and the prose is evocative. The world of The Second Sleep is plausible and richly imagined.

Darragh McManus, Irish Independent

A wholly convincing alternative world in which a few brave heretics are determined to uncover the truth. The result is a brilliantly imaginative thriller.

READER'S DIGEST

Harris takes you on a thrilling ride while serving up serious food for thought.

Daily Mirror

Harris . . . is a fearless writer. The Second Sleep races along at breakneck speed. The prose is pure, elegant, never tricky and his imagination knows no bounds.

Daily Express

Harris's bleak imagined world issues a clarion call to the present, urging us to recognise the value of progress, the importance of woolly concepts like liberalism and the rule of law, and all the other ideals we’ve spent generations fighting for yet seem prepared to sacrifice on the altar of populism. For make no mistake, this novel [is] very much about the here and now . . . Harris is a master of plotting and, in elegant, understated third-person prose, he ratchets the tension ever upwards . . . this is nothing if not a page-turner.

Alex Preston, Observer

Harris has contrived to do something rather brilliant and new. He has put us at the heart of the mystery.

Guardian

When Harris is at his best — and here he is — he writes with a skill and ingenuity that few other novelists can match. In this case, the usual page turning pleasures are joined by something else: a sense that, through his historical-futuristic setting, Harris has found a unique vantage point to comment on the present . . . This is a novel that not only makes you smile at its author’s brilliance, but induces a shiver of dread at how real it all seems.

Financial Times

It's hard not to credit Harris's writing, no matter when and where it is set, with some sort of sidelong prescience.

Irish Times

It’s a provocative, tub-thumping sci-fi of which H. G. Wells might have been proud.

Daily Mail

As he flexes the ample muscle of his imagination, you will be left pondering as often as you are page-turning.

i paper

Blisteringly intelligent, gripping thriller

Daily Express

[T]here is a twist so shocking and surprising in Harris' most recent work The Second Sleep that I don't want to say anything more than: prepare to be amazed [...] Writing is deeply tricky. Harris, over decades of practice, manages to craft all the elements to ensure reader satisfaction. The description is articulated in a clear way with the dialogue managed suitably. Characters sound like real people instead of clunky dialogue which is all too common. Most importantly, events actually take place. Exposition of place, setting and context is essential [...] Harris without doubt continually does this and creates a refreshing sense of relief, which will ensure I continue to read his works for many decades to come.

The Boar

Hooked

Bella Mackie