Getting Away
03 July 2025Imprint: Zaffre
Synopsis
"Gripping - and profound... Kate Sawyer has a great gift for capturing the tiny details that tell us everything about a person or dynamic." -- Marian Keyes
"From its brilliant, ambitious premise (a story told through family holidays) to its complex and wholly absorbing characters, Getting Away is a moving insight into the beautiful complexity of ordinary lives." -- Jennie Godfrey
Margaret Smith is at the beach.
It is a summer day unlike any other Margaret has ever known.
The Smith family have left the town where they live and work and go to school and come to a place where the sky is blue, the sand is white, and the sound of the sea surrounds them. An ordinary family discovering the joy of getting away for the first time.
Over the course of the coming decades, they will be transformed through their holiday experiences, each new destination a backdrop as the family grows and changes, love stories begin and end -- and secrets are revealed.
Coming this summer, Getting Away is a dazzlingly ambitious new novel from the author of Waterstones' Fiction Book of the Month, This Family, and the Costa shortlisted The Stranding.
"From its brilliant, ambitious premise (a story told through family holidays) to its complex and wholly absorbing characters, Getting Away is a moving insight into the beautiful complexity of ordinary lives." -- Jennie Godfrey
Margaret Smith is at the beach.
It is a summer day unlike any other Margaret has ever known.
The Smith family have left the town where they live and work and go to school and come to a place where the sky is blue, the sand is white, and the sound of the sea surrounds them. An ordinary family discovering the joy of getting away for the first time.
Over the course of the coming decades, they will be transformed through their holiday experiences, each new destination a backdrop as the family grows and changes, love stories begin and end -- and secrets are revealed.
Coming this summer, Getting Away is a dazzlingly ambitious new novel from the author of Waterstones' Fiction Book of the Month, This Family, and the Costa shortlisted The Stranding.
Details
03 July 2025368 pages
9781804189139Imprint: Zaffre
Reviews
From its brilliant, ambitious premise (a story told through family holidays) to its complex and wholly absorbing characters, Getting Away is a moving insight into the beautiful complexity of ordinary lives.Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
A multi-generational epic of vacations: Kate Sawyer tells a moving story of the joys, secrets, heartbreaks, and reversals of one family's lineage with transporting vignettes of holidays reflecting the seismic shifts in travel and society. This propulsive novel is a century's worth of wisdom on how getting away from home can lead us to get closer to the mysteries of who we really are.Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West
Reading this book takes you around the world; telling the story of a family through multiple generations all through the holidays they take - it's Behind The Scenes At The Museum meets One Day! An absorbing, intricate novel perfect for getting away, wherever you are.Jennifer Saint
Cleverly and patiently, Kate unfolds this layered novel through the decades, showing all her skill as a writer. As a portrait of an evolving family, it is moving, and Kate makes big family moments work alongside gorgeous glimpses into the tiny details of their lives.Georgina Moore, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Garnett Girls