
Kate Sawyer worked as an actor and producer, and wrote several short films before turning her hand to fiction. She is the author of three novels: the forthcoming Getting Away, Waterstones Fiction Book of The Month, This Family, and her debut novel, The Stranding, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, won the East Anglian fiction prize, was adapted for BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and is being developed for the screen by Fremantle and Afua Hirsch's production company Born In Me.
When Kate isn't writing, or talking to other authors about their writing practices for her podcast Novel Experience and as a chair for author events, she works as the Programme Curator for the annual Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival.
After twenty years living in London, she recently returned to her native East Anglia, where she lives with her young daughter.
photograph © Sophie Davidson
coming
3rd July 2025
It is a summer day unlike any other Margaret has ever known.
The Smith family have left the town where they live and work and go to school and come to a place where the sky is blue, the sand is white, and the sound of the sea surrounds them. An ordinary family discovering the joy of getting away for the first time.
Over the course of the coming decades, they will be transformed through their holiday experiences, each new destination a backdrop as the family grows and changes, love stories begin and end – and secrets are revealed.
Coming this summer, Getting Away is a dazzlingly ambitious new novel from the author of Waterstones
Fiction Book of the Month, This Family, and the Costa-shortlisted The Stranding.

Early reviews for Getting Away
Gripping - and profound... Kate Sawyer has a great gift for capturing the tiny details that tell us everything about a person or dynamic.
- Marian Keyes, bestselling author
From its brilliant, ambitious premise (a story told through family holidays) to its complex and wholly absorbing characters, Getting Away is a moving insight into the beautiful complexity of ordinary lives.
- Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
A multi-generational epic of vacations: Kate Sawyer tells a moving story of the joys, secrets, heartbreaks, and reversals of one family's lineage with transporting vignettes of holidays reflecting the seismic shifts in travel and society. This propulsive novel is a century's worth of wisdom on how getting away from home can lead us to get closer to the mysteries of who we really are.
- Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West
Cleverly and patiently, Kate unfolds this layered novel through the decades, showing all her skill as a writer. As a portrait of an evolving family, it is moving, and Kate makes big family moments work alongside gorgeous glimpses into the tiny details of their lives.
- Georgina Moore, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Garnett Girls
Confident, accomplished and full of heart. This century-spanning family saga gives us characters to care about, champion and weep for in four generations. Their story will keep you turning pages late into the night.
- Annie Garthwaite, author of Cecily
At turns nostalgic, funny, familiar and deeply emotional. Getting Away covers the vastness of the human experience - secrets, heartache, tragedy and triumph - in one family's holidays across almost a century and five generations. An extraordinarily accomplished novel and a deeply moving family saga.
- Kirsty Capes, author of Girls
Getting Away is an excellent homage to family complexity, nostalgia, class and generational divides.
- Phoebe Morgan, author of The Trip

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