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A brilliant new talent writing from lived experience makes his debut with this irresistible and original story in the vein of Young Mungo and Hang the Moon, that pierces the beautiful, brilliant, and lightning-quick mind of a teenage girl growing up with undiagnosed ADHD in working-class Scotland.
In the blazing hot summer of 1994, there's nothing for Cora Mowat to do but hang around in empty parking lots. Stuck in her Mom's small house and tired of her own restless mind, she's desperate to break free of the limits of Fife but unsure of what the future holds—if it holds anything at all for a girl like her trying to find her way in the world.
After her mother invites a new man to live with them, tensions quickly rise in the cramped house. Gunner is kind but strange, too—a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few hidden secrets. But when tragedy strikes shortly after, Cora rebels against her small-town existence in search of love, acceptance, and a path to something good. If only she can learn to navigate her grief and everything she thinks she knows about who she is and what she might be capable of, she may finally find the way forward.
In this extraordinary debut, drawn from experience but written with riotous imagination, Tom Newlands explores a teenage girl's coming-of-age in post-industrial Scotland and what it means to yearn for a life that feels out of reach. Vibrant, lyrical and fiercely funny, Only Here, Only Now is a story of identity and family that shines with hope and resilience.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/11/2025)
I'm reading 'The Entire Sky' by Joe Wilkins, recommended by a bookstagrammer friend. And a few days ago I finished 'Only here, Only now' by Tom Newlands, an eye opening novel narrated by a young girl who has ADHD and lots of life challenges and isn't quite sure which way to turn.
-Evonne_Benedict
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/04/2025)
I am reading 'Only here, only now' by Tom Newlands. No idea how I landed on this one! It follows a novel, which shall remain nameless, that I actually gave up on. Something I hardly ever do but it wasn't grabbing me and lack of quotation marks in dialogue confused me. Last week I read two books f...
-Evonne_Benedict
"Newlands debuts with a stirring portrait of a 14-year-old neurodivergent Scottish girl dealing with grief and restlessness...Newlands does an excellent job portraying Cora's undiagnosed ADHD, shedding light on the ways in which the condition was overlooked in the '90s...The result is a vibrant coming-of-age story." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Cora's neurodivergence is both beautifully different and hilariously relatable; her arc is especially poignant as she learns how to juggle her love of home and family with her desire to escape her claustrophobic and limiting hometown. At the heart of Only Here, Only Now is a character who is a joy to listen to as she narrates her coming-of-age story in her own unique manner. Suggest this to readers of literary coming-of-age tales like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and character-rich fiction like Tess Gunty's The Rabbit Hutch. Teens looking for neurodivergence representation will find it in this darkly funny coming-of-age tale." —Booklist
"This recommended novel aptly emphasizes the challenges of poverty, orphanhood, and food and housing insecurity for a teen trying to have a good life." —Library Journal
"Only Here, Only Now heralds the arrival of an urgent and unique new voice, as engaging and as startling as Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Morvern Callar or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and will surely be hailed as one of the great British debut novels." —David Peace, author of Nineteen Eighty-Three
"Absolutely loved this. Funny and heartbreaking in equal measure." —Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain
"A funny, truthful, heartbreaking yet hopeful read." —Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
This information about Only Here, Only Now was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tom Newlands is a multiply neurodivergent Scottish writer. He is a recipient of the London Writer's Award for Literary Fiction, a Creative Future Writer's Award and a Creative Future/TLC Next Up Award. He was one of eleven writers selected for New Writing North's "A Writing Chance," and in 2022 was a featured writer at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. He now lives in London.
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