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January 28, 2025  |  Sash Bischoff

Sweet Fury one of Penguin’s Debut Novels of 2025

Debut novels of 2025: discover the year’s breakthrough new voices

Introducing 13 new Penguin authors as they share the inspiration behind their debut novels.

Katie Russell, Sarah McKenna, Rachel Deeley, and Derek Withshire 21 January 2025

Sweet Fury by Sash Bischoff

A Hollywood starlet sees a therapist in preparation for her role in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, directed by her fiancé. But as the story develops, life seems to imitate art – until each character’s real motives are revealed. Author Sash Bischoff credits her career as a theatre director for her “intimate understanding of pacing and tension”, and the stakes certainly feel high throughout.  

A fellow writer suggested Bischoff incorporate Tender is the Night into her novel. “The deeper I dug, the more I realised that Sweet Fury should be in conversation not just with Tender Is the Night, but with Fitzgerald’s body of work as a whole,” she says. The novel is also in conversation with the #MeToo movement, but Bischoff wanted to “avoid telling a story that felt black and white.” As a result, the characters “live in the grey area,” with thought-provoking results.  

Read if you like: Promising Young WomanGone Girl by Gillian Flynn; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. 

Sweet Fury is out 3rd April.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2025/01/new-debut-novels-of-2025