2026 Climate Fiction Prize (longlist)
2026 Walter Scott Prize for Best Historical Novel (longlist)
2025 Goldsmiths Prize (shortlist)
A Guardian,Observer, New Statesman, Financial Times, Independent, BBC and Daily Mail Book of the Year
'Vital, fierce and free.' Financial Times
'Incandescently good.' Sarah Perry
'Pulsing with life and lyricism.' Spectator
'Fiercely exuberant.' Observer
'Delightfully playful.' Andrew Miller
'A truly astonishing thing.' George Monbiot
A wondrous, elemental novel from 'a writer of show-stopping genius'. Guardian
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE, THE GORDON BURN PRIZE AND THE WINSTON GRAHAM PRIZE
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and wonder - who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time.
This is Helm's life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it - and the farmer's daughter who fell in love. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh.
Vital and audacious, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force - and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.
'Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself.' DAISY JOHNSON
'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers.' BENJAMIN MYERS
'I'm awed . I wouldn't think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one's sense of what fiction can do.' SARAH MOSS
'Helm is as vital, fierce and free as the phenomenon it describes.' FINANCIAL TIMES
'A spectacular epic tapestry. Nobody could tell the story of our inextricable relationship with wild nature as beautifully as Sarah Hall.' LEE SCHOFIELD
'[Hall]sweeps from the cinematic to the specific, her prose pulsing with life and lyricism. Helmpushes both the boundaries of the novel and our relationship with nature.' SPECTATOR
'A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller.' ANDREW MILLER
Genre: Literary Fiction
'Vital, fierce and free.' Financial Times
'Incandescently good.' Sarah Perry
'Pulsing with life and lyricism.' Spectator
'Fiercely exuberant.' Observer
'Delightfully playful.' Andrew Miller
'A truly astonishing thing.' George Monbiot
A wondrous, elemental novel from 'a writer of show-stopping genius'. Guardian
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE, THE GORDON BURN PRIZE AND THE WINSTON GRAHAM PRIZE
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and wonder - who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time.
This is Helm's life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it - and the farmer's daughter who fell in love. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh.
Vital and audacious, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force - and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.
'Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself.' DAISY JOHNSON
'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers.' BENJAMIN MYERS
'I'm awed . I wouldn't think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one's sense of what fiction can do.' SARAH MOSS
'Helm is as vital, fierce and free as the phenomenon it describes.' FINANCIAL TIMES
'A spectacular epic tapestry. Nobody could tell the story of our inextricable relationship with wild nature as beautifully as Sarah Hall.' LEE SCHOFIELD
'[Hall]sweeps from the cinematic to the specific, her prose pulsing with life and lyricism. Helmpushes both the boundaries of the novel and our relationship with nature.' SPECTATOR
'A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller.' ANDREW MILLER
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Helm is just a brilliant achievement, and could really only be created by Sarah Hall. I can think of no better writer to give voice to a natural phenomenon, because she is one herself." - Kirstin Innes
"Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes." - Daisy Johnson
"Helm is a wonder. I'm almost drunk on so many voices and so much invention. There's something fearless in the way Sarah Hall writes. It's a novel rooted in a sense of place, but extraordinarily expansive in its time travelling. A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller. A writer at full stretch and at the top of her craft." - Andrew Miller
"I'm awed by Sarah Hall's ability to hold timelines from prehistory to modern climate anxiety in simultaneous tension. I wouldn't think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one's sense of what fiction can do." - Sarah Moss
"Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes." - Daisy Johnson
"Helm is a wonder. I'm almost drunk on so many voices and so much invention. There's something fearless in the way Sarah Hall writes. It's a novel rooted in a sense of place, but extraordinarily expansive in its time travelling. A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller. A writer at full stretch and at the top of her craft." - Andrew Miller
"I'm awed by Sarah Hall's ability to hold timelines from prehistory to modern climate anxiety in simultaneous tension. I wouldn't think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one's sense of what fiction can do." - Sarah Moss
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Used availability for Sarah Hall's Helm