Longtime nonfiction writer Francis Spufford has been quietly doing some pretty remarkable work in recent years with alternative historical fiction. His last prize-winning novel, CAHOKIA JAZZ, imagined a multiethnic (but still imperfect) America resulting from Native American immunity to smallpox during the period of white settler expansion. Now, in NONESUCH, he turns his attention to England and the early years of World War II --- but with the added element of powerful (and often terrifying) angels.

Iris Hawkins is a young woman with a plan. Estranged from her parents and working in the secretarial pool at a London stockbroker's office, she has taught herself everything she knows about finance (which, at this point, is quite a bit). She longs to earn enough money to be truly independent and comfortable, even without a man's income to fall back on. It's not that she isn't interested in men; she prefers to use them for one-night stands and then get back to the pleasure of her own company.

"NONESUCH is a bit of a wild ride but in the best possible way. The novel is both exciting and thoroughly immersive in its accounting of not only the tedium of the early months of the war...but also the emotional lives of its characters and the magical system they discover and explore."

On one bad double date, Iris and the other woman in the group, Esther, make their escape from Iris' boring companion. Esther, an artist, introduces Iris to a new social group, made up in part of young people working in the BBC's nascent television department (which has been in existence since 1936 but largely broadcasts to no one as television receivers are virtually nonexistent as of 1939). Iris meets and immediately dislikes Lall, a budding fascist with a beautiful face and an icy demeanor. In part to spite her, Iris seduces her handsome but somewhat nerdy new acquaintance, Geoff, who up until that point had eyes only for Lall.

However, what Iris doesn't expect is to start to feel something for Geoff --- or to see a bizarrely unsettling and unnatural figure standing guard outside his house when she tries to sneak away the following morning. When that same figure appears near her workplace a few weeks later, chasing her and seemingly intent on violence, Iris is compelled to reconnect with Geoff to try to determine what's going on.

Meanwhile, the war in Europe is starting to heat up, and Britain is on the verge of getting a new Prime Minister, the choice of which might shape the future of Britain's involvement in the war. To make a long (and thoroughly engaging) story short, Iris learns that the creature intent on doing her harm is an angel associated with an ancient mystical system that is connected to Geoff's father. He's not the only one aware of this network, and it soon becomes clear that British fascists are planning to utilize a secret system of gateways (disguised in statues high on city rooftops) to go back in time and twist history to favor their cause.

Iris grows determined to stop them. But soon the Germans are bombing London almost nightly, making her nights harrowing, whether she's chasing fascists across magical pathways or not. She also has real-world concerns. Can she utilize the war to finally gain acceptance at work? Might she be (oh dear) actually falling for Geoff, perhaps her most unlikely suitor of all?

As you probably can tell, NONESUCH is a bit of a wild ride but in the best possible way. The novel is both exciting and thoroughly immersive in its accounting of not only the tedium of the early months of the war, as well as the nightly terror and exhaustion that follow, but also the emotional lives of its characters and the magical system they discover and explore.

Spufford is masterful at stepping back at just the right moment. On Christmas Eve in 1940, Iris and Geoff take a chance and join their neighbors at a local church, despite the risk that bombing might commence at any time. The descriptive scene that follows is both heartbreaking and lovely: "They were making a shelter with their voices, by candlelight, in which vulnerable things, innocent things, new things, could at least be hoped for…. But if the walls were only a solidification of hope anyway, and mortared stones were no more strong than hope, then hope was no less strong than mortared stones."

This is not the first time that Spufford has explored the Blitz in his fiction. LIGHT PERPETUAL, one of my favorite books of 2021, was another work of alternate history that imagined what might have happened in the lives of five children had they not been killed by a real-life rocket attack. Nor will it be the last, apparently, as NONESUCH closes with those words that both entice and frustrate readers: To be continued.