Books that explore difficult questions with honesty and humanity.
The Convenient Scapegoat
by Peter Collins
Peter is fifteen.
His friend Sam is Jewish.
Until recently, that was just a fact — like Sam supporting Tottenham or being better at maths.
Then someone calls someone a “Jew” in the lunch queue, Sam's father is attacked outside the synagogue. A boy in Peter’s year told Peter that "what people are saying about the Jews" makes a lot of sense.
Peter tries to understand where this hatred comes from - and why so many adults seem afraid to talk honestly about it.
A thoughtful novel about identity, fear, history, and modern prejudice.
Published April 2026.
Peter thought he understood how antisemitism survives. At university, he is trying to build a future and finish the book he has begun writing. Then hostile posts appear on TikTok. A knife emoji. A message from someone who claims to know which building he is in.
When Peter is accused of fabricating his work, the questions he thought he had answered return with new force. Online hostility becomes more personal, and he must decide what is worth defending - and what it means to stay.
Still Here continues Peter’s story in a tense exploration of antisemitism, online intimidation, truth and belonging.
This is the second book in the Peter Collins series - a sequence about what it costs, in contemporary Britain, to keep paying attention.
JUST PUBLISHED
Still Here
About the series
The Peter Collins series follows one character across his teenage years and early adulthood as he tries to understand antisemitism in modern Britain. Each book stands alone but the sequence rewards being read in order.