Published in 2025
9 hours and 48 minutes
Sarah Moss is the author of the novels Ripeness, The Fell, Summerwater, and Ghost Wall, and the memoir My Good Bright Wolf. These and her other books have been listed among the best of the year in The Guardian, The Times (London), Elle, and the Financial Times and selected for The New York Times Book Review’s Editors’ Choice. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she was educated at the University of Oxford and now teaches at University College Dublin.
What is this book about?
Moving from 60s Italy to contemporary Ireland, Ripeness is a breathtaking story of love and the search for belonging from Sarah Moss, bestselling author of Summerwater.
‘The achievement of a lifetime, written by one of the best writers alive’ – Jessie Burton
‘A book of lasting pleasures’ – Eleanor Catton
‘Her work is as close to perfect as a novelist’s can be’ – The Times
On the brink of adulthood and just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will change all of their lives.
Decades later, happily divorced and newly energized, Edith is living in contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Méabh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother, Méabh must decide if she will meet him, and Edith finds herself plunged back into her own past and the story of the baby she once knew and loved.
‘Tender and rueful . . . Sarah Moss is a marvel of insight and eloquence’ – Emma Donoghue
‘One of our greatest living writers’ – Katherine May, author of Wintering
