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This, My Second Life
  • Published: 8 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781804956595
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

This, My Second Life

Formats & editions
Hardback
13 Jan 2026
EBook
8 Jan 2026
Audiobook
8 Jan 2026
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Beautifully written, spare and elegiac, a literary debut novel set in Cornwall in which a young man comes to terms with a life-changing injury.

After a near-death experience and life-changing injury, twenty-year-old Jago Trevarno goes to stay with his uncle on his small coastal farm a few miles from St Ives in Cornwall.

Their existence is a simple one, their lives measured by the span of the days, the rhythms of the seasons and the animals they care for.

But lurking in the shadows is local villain, Bill Sligo, who has designs on Jacob's farm and in particular on a field near the cliffs housing a derelict mineshaft.

Wanting to repay his uncle’s kindness, Jago determines to find out what Bill Sligo is up to.

Jago is still vulnerable though, and in pursuing Sligo he delves into a murky world that he is ill-equipped to deal with. How far will Bill Sligo go to get what he wants? Jago doesn’t know it yet, but once again he is in grave danger.

Filled with shafts of light and darkness as well as the beauty and harshness of the Cornish landscape, Jago's journey is one of hope, renewal and resilience as he comes to terms with this, his second life.
  • Published: 8 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781804956595
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256
Categories:

About the author

Patrick Charnley

Patrick Charnley grew up in the English West Country where he fell in love with Cornwall, the setting for this novel. While convalescing from a cardiac arrest that very nearly ended his life and left him with a brain injury, he began to write. He now lives in north London with his wife and children.
This, My Second Life is his first novel.

PC

Praise for This, My Second Life

Touching, richly evocative. A remarkable debut novel

Patrick Gale

Utterly absorbing, beautifully written and insightful in unexpected ways. This, My Second Life is a moving must-read

Jennie Godfrey

Thrilling and tender, I enjoyed every word. Jago is a very original memorable narrator, full of warmth and optimism

Julie Myerson

Deceptively simple yet completely compulsive. I was absorbed by Jago's story and the world around him

Gill Hornby

An unexpectedly life affirming story woven into the fabric of a thriller

Esther Freud

An intense and unexpected debut. A beautiful piece of writing

Amanda Craig

The tension of a thriller and the tenderness of a recovery story ... a hypnotic read, gentle, generous and compelling.

Mail on Sunday

An astonishing debut of recovery…The prose is spare and beautiful, the narrative simple but sound – it is as finely wrought as poetry… Jago’s distinctive voice emerges, a true and clear and entirely convincing creation, always reaching towards the light and life

The Guardian

[An] elegant, infinitely touching debut novel

Saga Magazine

The novel is simply rewarding

Times Literary Supplement

It succeeds as a work of art

The Week

[A] powerful debut

The Telegraph