These nine stories are filled with longing, guilt and violence.

Jewelled and barbed with the beauty and brutality of real life, these are sentences of perfect weight and understanding. There are no fillers here, no stories that disappoint: the nine coalesce into something rare and understatedly breathtaking. Like the missing who haunt these stories, Thunderstruck is unforgettable.

Wonderful, moving tales.

An electric blend of hilarity and despair.

[A] powerful collection.

McCracken writes in lilting, contained prose, and imbues her narratives with wry humour and the soothing resonance of fairy tales… An unforgettable collection that should be irredeemably sad but, in fact, is strangely life-affirming.

I was so enthralled by her world, I didn’t want to leave

Please do yourself a favour and secure a copy of this splendid book. And not because it is the winner of the Story Prize, but because is exceptionally good

A...writer of great sensitivity and delicacy. Her new collection of stories show no falling off in her gift for putting the ordinary into a sharp, clear persepective, seem very near and also very far away

She draws her readers irresistably into the undergrowth of other people's private lives

Paul Theroux combines the traveller's hawk eye with the novelist's keen insight. . .[he has] an uncanny ability to rivet the reader.

A masterpiece of wit and elegance.

The author charts the various stages of life with engaging curiosity and earthy compassion... The publishers, Jonathan Cape, have done a fine job with this handsome and substantial collection.

All the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.

Even Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.

A tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.