A remarkable true story richly reimagined

Coming Up for Air

A breathtaking, deeply immersive story of three extraordinary lives bound together across oceans and time, yet whose paths will never cross. Sarah Leipciger counts Rachel Joyce, Mark Haddon and Terri White among her fans.

THREE EXTRAORDINARY LIVES INTERTWINE ACROSS OCEANS AND TIME 
 
'Bold in its weaving of three ingeniously linked storylines and rich in sensuous detail and vivid characterisation. I can't wait for her next.' PATRICK GALE 
 
'A stunning, stirring story told with exceptional skill and rare beauty' TERRI WHITE 
 
'Glittering. A triumph.' RACHEL JOYCE 
 
**LONGLISTED FOR THE HWA GOLD CROWN 2020** 
 
On the banks of the River Seine in 1899, a young woman takes her final breath before plunging into the icy water. Although she does not know it, her decision will set in motion an astonishing chain of events. It will lead to 1950s Norway, where a grieving toy-maker is on the cusp of a transformative invention, all the way to present-day Canada where a journalist, battling a terrible disease, risks everything for one last chance to live. 
 
Taking inspiration from a remarkable true story, Coming Up for Air is a bold, richly imagined novel about the transcendent power of storytelling and the immeasurable impact of every human life. 
 
MORE PRAISE FOR COMING UP FOR AIR: 
'Extraordinary.' FRANCIS SPUFFORD 
'Vivid, evocative, moving. I loved it' CLAIRE FULLER 
'Spellbinding and beautifully written.' CARYS BRAY 
'Dazzling . . . I savoured every word of its beautiful prose' PRIMA

Coming Up For Air confirms Sarah Leipciger as a major talent. A meditation on mortality and our will to survive and save, it's really bold in its weaving of three ingeniously linked storylines and rich in sensuous detail and vivid characterisation. I can't wait for her next.

A stunning, stirring story told with exceptional skill and rare beauty.

Sarah Leipciger captures the nature of solitude and stillness in a way that no other writer does. THE MOUNTAIN CAN WAIT was a wonder. COMING UP FOR AIR expands her range even further, exploring that eerie shoreline where land and ocean meet, where breathing becomes drowning, and life teeters on the very edge.

An extraordinary, three-century braid of air and water: the way we float, the way we drown, the way we surface again against the odds.

Here is a novel that dares to cross the boundaries of time, the elements, life and death, and does so with the twists and hooks and magic of a consummate story teller.

Spellbinding and beautifully written . . . an extraordinary novel. I can’t wait to read what Leipciger writes next.

Exceptional skill... exquisite descriptions... Fact and fiction flow together like two rivers conjoining and making together for the sea... a beautiful novel of compassion...

Dazzling . . . A stunning interwoven story of three threads set in different times and countries . . . I savoured every word of its beautiful prose.

Hauntingly melancholic and richly detailed

Leipciger writes with great compassion and precision, her language is an exquisite mix of muscle and grace

Captivating and thought-provoking . . . Leipciger is a masterful and brilliant storyteller . . . a fascinating and enthralling must-read.

Born and raised in Canada, Sarah Leipciger lives in London with her three children. She is Associate Lecture in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University and also teaches at City Lit London. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Asham Award, the Fish Prize and the Bridport Prize. She is the author of the critically acclaimed THE MOUNTAIN CAN WAIT (2015) and COMING UP FOR AIR (2020). MOON ROAD is her third novel.

'Bold in its weaving of three ingeniously linked storylines and rich in sensuous detail and vivid characterisation. I can't wait for her next.' PATRICK GALE 
 
'A stunning, stirring story told with exceptional skill and rare beauty.' TERRI WHITE 
 
'Glittering. A triumph.' RACHEL JOYCE 
 
**LONGLISTED FOR THE HWA GOLD CROWN 2020** 
 
THREE EXTRAORDINARY LIVES INTERTWINE ACROSS OCEANS AND TIME 
 
On the banks of the River Seine in 1899, a young woman takes her final breath before plunging into the icy water. Although she does not know it, her decision will set in motion an astonishing chain of events. It will lead to 1950s Norway, where a grieving toy-maker is on the cusp of a transformative invention, all the way to present-day Canada where a journalist, battling a terrible disease, risks everything for one last chance to live. 
 
Taking inspiration from a remarkable true story, Coming Up for Air is a bold, richly imagined novel about the transcendent power of storytelling and the immeasurable impact of every human life. 
 
MORE PRAISE FOR COMING UP FOR AIR: 
'Extraordinary.' FRANCIS SPUFFORD 
'Vivid, evocative, moving. I loved it' CLAIRE FULLER 
'Spellbinding and beautifully written.' CARYS BRAY 
'Dazzling . . . I savoured every word of its beautiful prose' PRIMA

Sarah Leipciger

Moon Road reads like a darker, gruffer blue-collar version of Elizabeth Strout’s novel, Oh, William! ... a slow-burn story about people who are learning to live with the unthinkable and the unknowable. Leipciger has written an intelligent, nuanced book that doesn’t let off fireworks or rely on catchy concepts. Instead, she places her faith in quiet observations about the contradictory elements that make up our relationship with ourselves and those we love. It is, refreshingly, a novel for grown-ups.

Set against the monumental grandeur of the mountains, this is a deliberate slow burn, sensitive but unsentimental, with the central mystery secondary to the novel’s humane, memory-lingering exploration of life and hope in the shadow of loss

A road trip with heart…a truly divine book, I loved both its simplicity and depth

Kathleen is a wonderful character – spikey and obstinate, but also vulnerable and big-hearted

A beautifully imagined portrait…a melancholy, meditative and simply gorgeous written story about two people, and enduring love

A deeply humane story by one of my favourite writers. Tough, tender, wonderful

JOANNA QUINN, author of THE WHALEBONE THEATRE

A whip-smart take on the classic road trip, with a compulsive bread-crumb plot, Moon Road is at once a candid portrait of ageing, an astute primer on parenting, and a masterful novel of love, loss, and navigating life's darkest moments

C.S. RICHARDSON, author of ALL THE COLOUR IN THE WORLD

A road trip into the human heart, wise and tough and generously alive, tracing through Kathleen and Yannick’s journey the slow alchemy by which loss tears people apart, and then sometimes brings them back together again

Read this! A love story, a tragedy, a road trip. Some of the best writing you'll read. Definitely one of my contenders for Books of the Year

A brilliant, compassionate novel that unflinchingly lays bare what we can’t know about those we love and what we can’t forget. Moon Road is self-assured, keenly-observant, heart-wrenching storytelling. Every page is a delight, leading to an ending that left me absolutely breathless. Beautiful, clever, captivating.

Moon Road is a story that confronts what it really means to be human—it’s about how love still burns after a long and hard time, about the unexpected ways that sadness lives within us, about longing for a time in life when something could still change. This book is intimate and tender in some ways, but so fierce and full in others—the landscapes, the tension of an estranged couple on a road trip, the mystery of a missing daughter. I just couldn’t put it down. Sarah Leipciger has written a brilliant, beautiful novel I’ll remember forever

The kind of novel that will take over your life. Absorbing and transporting

Reminds me of Olive Kitteridge. And I loved the ending, how the author avoids turning it into a mystery whodunnit while still harnessing all the gripping momentum of one

Delicately observed, forceful and moving, this story of love, family bonds and the agony of loss is utterly absorbing - and so beautifully written

A mesmeric portrait of a decades-long marriage, wrapped in a powerful family mystery - for fans of ELIZABETH STROUT and BARBARA KINGSOLVER 
 
'A darker, gruffer Elizabeth Strout' The Times 
 
'Sarah Leipciger is a consummate storyteller' Rachel Joyce 
 
'Tough, tender, wonderful' Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre 
 
'A sucker-punch of a novel' Grazia 
____________________________ 
Kathleen and Yannick have not spoken for nineteen years, not since what happened with their daughter. 
 
Now, there’s unexpected news from the other side of the country, and the call for a road trip they can only make together. 
 
As they rattle for hundreds of miles in a pick-up, through forests, over mountains and into service stations, a heartbreaking history reveals itself: of fierce love, complicated ex-wives and headstrong children, and of a unique bond that never really went away. 
 
As they drive, argue, gossip and reminisce, an unexpected future begins to emerge. 
 
Gripping, emotional, witty: MOON ROAD captures the wonder and grief of watching our children grow up; of recovering from long buried pain, and rediscovering those closest to us when we think we know all there is to know. 
_______ 
 
EVERYONE IS GRIPPED BY MOON ROAD: 
 
‘Delicately observed, forceful and moving' Lucy Atkins 
 
‘Beautifully imagined. Simply gorgeous' Woman & Home 
 
‘A truly divine book’ Prima book of the month 
 
'Generously alive' FRANCIS SPUFFORD 
 
'Fierce, tragic, lyrical. One of my books of the year' CLAIRE FULLER 
 
'This book will win a prize' READER

Sarah Leipciger

Praise for Moon Road

Moon Road reads like a darker, gruffer blue-collar version of Elizabeth Strout’s novel, Oh, William! ... a slow-burn story about people who are learning to live with the unthinkable and t ...

Set against the monumental grandeur of the mountains, this is a deliberate slow burn, sensitive but unsentimental, with the central mystery secondary to the novel’s humane, memory-lingering exploration of life an ...

A road trip with heart…a truly divine book, I loved both its simplicity and depth

Moon Road reads like a darker, gruffer blue-collar version of Elizabeth Strout’s novel, Oh, William! ... a slow-burn story about people who are learning to live with the unthinkable and t ...

Set against the monumental grandeur of the mountains, this is a deliberate slow burn, sensitive but unsentimental, with the central mystery secondary to the novel’s humane, memory-lingering exploration of life an ...

A road trip with heart…a truly divine book, I loved both its simplicity and depth

Moon Road reads like a darker, gruffer blue-collar version of Elizabeth Strout’s novel, Oh, William! ... a slow-burn story about people who are learning to live with the unthinkable and t ...

Set against the monumental grandeur of the mountains, this is a deliberate slow burn, sensitive but unsentimental, with the central mystery secondary to the novel’s humane, memory-lingering exploration of life an ...

A road trip with heart…a truly divine book, I loved both its simplicity and depth

Books by Sarah Leipciger

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