Good Time

Nell Stevens writes memoir and fiction. Her debut novel, Briefly, a Delicious Life was longlisted for the 2023 Dylan Thomas Award. She is also the author of Bleaker House and Mrs Gaskell & Me, which won the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018. Her writing is published in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, The Paris Review, New York Review of Books, Guardian, Granta and elsewhere. Nell is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick.

Praise for Nell StevensThe Good Time ‘Wry, wise and funny’ Daily Mail 'Wry, precise and full of wisdom, these stories ask what it means to have a good time – and what happens when the good times end’ '11 New Books Everyone Will Be Talking About' SheerLuxe The Original 'What a bewitching book this is. A sinuous, thrilling meditation on fakes and forgers, with echoes of Daphne du Maurier and Sarah Waters and an audacity that is totally original to Nell herself' Olivia Laing, author of THE GARDEN AGAINST TIME ‘Deliciously engaging and wildly intelligent. I adored this novel about art, authenticity and desire and am a devoted fan of Nell Stevens’ Aysegül Savas, author of THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS ‘A delightful, playful puzzle of a novel, and a brilliant twist on the nineteenth century orphan-makes-good story. THE ORIGINAL asks whether, sometimes, faking it is the right thing to do' Claire Fuller, author of UNSETTLED GROUND ‘A marvellously inventive and perfectly forged novel that poses a mischievous question: what role does likeness play in love? The ghosts of Oscar Wilde and Wilkie Collins stalk these pages, whether they know it or not’  Eleanor Catton, author of Birnam Wood ‘A wonderful novel about identity, creativity, money and belonging. It’s so witty and propulsive you will forget how brilliantly constructed it is, this tale that brims with the beauty of art, of how to triumph in a difficult world’ Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist 'Intricate, endlessly intriguing... The reader is kept guessing until the very end... as Stevens deftly raises the stakes, the pages seem to turn themselves. The narrative captivates intellectually, too, probing questions of authenticity, imitation, and self-realisation, in love and in art. The overall effect is of an author boldly stepping out on her own, pursuing themes that were hers all along.' Observer ‘Casually magisterial… Stevens is showing herself to be that rare thing: a writer who we can think alongside, even while she’s making things up' Lara Feigel, Guardian (book of the day) ‘Immaculate in structure, sure-footed in tone and propelled forward by a rising tide of apprehension, the novel is a captivatingly strange masterpiece of Victorian pastiche. It puts Stevens in the class of Sarah Waters and even du Maurier herself as a sharp-witted fiction writer whose masterly technique and style are matched and sustained by a compelling gift for spinning a yarn’ Miranda Seymour, Financial Times   Briefly, A Delicious Life‘A gorgeous, wildly seductive novel, shimmering with intelligence, humour and joy’  Sarah Waters ‘Electrifyingly beautiful, exhilaratingly clever’  Imogen Hermes Gowar ‘Like the best historical fiction it is playfully disingenuous... the whole book is radiant with life’  Financial Times ‘Nell Stevens’s hugely accomplished debut novel evokes a sense both of place and time with a confidence that augurs well for her future career’ Guardian Mrs Gaskell & Me ‘Stevens is a very artful writer’  Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker ‘A truly lovely book – acutely observed and honest and melancholy’  Jessie Greengrass Bleaker House ‘Perfect… as funny as it is poignant’ Lena Dunham