Bellwether Revivals, The

**Please note: This NetGalley title is only available to US readers. The Bellwether Revivals will be available to Canadian readers from McClelland & Stewart.**

Acquired in a competitive auction, Benjamin Wood’s debut novel, THE BELLWETHER REVIVALS explores the entanglements of class in modern-day Britain, the bewitching appeal of love, and the sometimes dark and dangerous power of art.

Set on the bucolic grounds of Cambridge University and the tony drawing rooms of the British upper class, a young man, Oscar Lowe, falls in love with a beautiful and patrician Cambridge student, Iris Bellwether, while simultaneously coming under the disturbing, mythic spell of her brilliant musician brother, Eden. Events quickly transpire to reveal that Eden’s musical genius might be accompanied by a deeply unsettling mania—and a belief that he possesses the power to heal people through music. Soon, Eden convinces Iris and their friends to begin holding “revivals,” during which he heals others through his music. Iris, consumed by love for her brother, yet disturbed by his behavior, reaches out to Oscar for help.

Wood confidently navigates readers through the tony world of the British aristocracy, the deeply-entrenched traditions of the Oxbridge system, and the urban, working-class estate. He also explores the complex terrains of passionate young love, and the sometimes all too fine boundaries between genius and madness. Readers will hold their breaths waiting for the novel’s shocking conclusion, but will be as bewitched throughout as its characters, in this novel that conjures the acuity and smart observation of Donna Tartt and Ian McEwan with the deftly woven suspense of Tana French and Ruth Rendell.

Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in northwest England. In 2004, he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to attend the MFA Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia, Canada. During his tenure as fiction editor of Canadian literary journal, PRISM international, the publication was awarded the Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. Benjamin’s short fiction has appeared in several international journals, and THE BELLWETHER REVIVALS was shortlisted for the inaugural Dylan Thomas Prize Sony Reader Award for the best unpublished novel. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, where he teaches and develops undergraduate programs. This is his first novel.