[Zusak] flings his readers straight into the deep end of his new vast, teeming novel . . . Warm and heartfelt . . . This is a tale of love, art and redemption; rowdy and joyous, with flashes of wit and insight, and ultimately moving.

If The Book Thief was a novel that allowed Death to steal the show... [its] brilliantly illuminated follow-up is affirmatively full of life.

The wait is over.

This vast novel is a feast of language and irony. There is sly wit on every page... it is hard not to fall a bit in love with it.

Bridge of Clay has been more than a decade in the making, and it shows: The characters are clearly loved, and the artistry of language will leave you gasping at times.

Devastating, demanding and deeply moving, Bridge of Clay unspools like a kind of magic act in reverse

Eleven years after his multi-million selling hit The Book Thief, Zusak has returned with this sweeping and compelling family tale... Give it your time and you'll be repaid with a moving and epic read.

Bridge of Clay is one of those monumental books that can draw you across space and time into another family's experience in the most profound way.

Exquisitely written ... A sensitively rendered tale of loss, grief, and guilt's manifestations

This book BLEW ME AWAY

A captivating book with a mighty, fearless heart, Bridge of Clay is filled with characters to believe in and care about ... achingly moving, delightfully funny, and thoroughly uplifting.

Unusual, boisterous and playful

This epic family saga is a sweeping reflection on love and loss etched in vibrant writing, vivid characterisations and heartfelt emotion . . . A book to lose yourself in on long autumn nights.

Markus Zusak crafts an unforgettable saga.

In a complex narrative that leaps through time and place and across oceans, Zusak paints a vivid portrait of the brothers trying to regain their balance by keeping their family’s story alive.

If The Book Thief is his most famous book, Bridge of Clay is his magnum opus.

[A] journey in a unique circumnavigatory style, blending past and present until we reach its heart-wrenching conclusion… The prose sings with spunky originality.

A sweeping story following the five Dunbar brothers through times of grief, love, and anger, Bridge of Clay is a time-jumping, dreamlike exploration of family.

Joseph O'Connor is the only writer I know who can make you laugh and cry in the same sentence.

Magnificent

A virtuoso act of literary ventriloquism. Shadowplay is funny, smart, tender, wise and written with inch-perfect precision

A thrilling novel, exquisitely contrived to show the characters whose loves and lives inspired Dracula. A great tribute, and a work of art. Deeply affecting.

As fascinating and memorable as anything O'Connor has done. The writing, too, as thrilling as ever. A great writer performing Olympian literary storytelling.

O’Connor is a true master of historical fiction, able to illuminate a bygone age with skill, wit and imagination

A lushly enjoyable pastiche of fin-de-siècle prose, in which Victorian euphemism is an authenticating stamp that double as a source of humour

A luminous and masterly depiction of Bram Stoker’s time at the Lyceum, this wonderful book explores the complex nature of love and creativity. Utterly captivating.

Beautifully written. O’Connor creates a vivid and vigorous world of his own

Beautifully written and gorgeously atmospheric

A beautifully written masterpiece

A vividly written and atmospheric meditation on the creative process

O’Connor is masterly at evoking the late Victorian era; its train journeys, street scenes, formality and banter… O’Connor is masterly at evoking the late Victorian era; its train journeys, street scenes, formality and banter

Rich and vivid

Joseph O'Connor has written an entertaining novel that combines narrative with transcripts of recordings, diary entries and other notes. It steeps viewers in the theatre of Irving and Terry in the late 1870s and beyond, providing much informative colour at the same time as delving deeply and frankly into a series of relationships that are generally convincing.

O’Connor tells his story in rich and stylish prose

A rousing story about a remarkable woman

Joseph O’Connor’s vivid descriptive writing evokes Stoker’s memories of the post-famine Ireland of his youth and of Irving’s company’s fraught tours of America… [his] fine writing, his wit and sympathy create a richly enjoyable backdrop for some familiar characters

Enthralling… Brings to teeming life the London of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras

Brilliant... alternately deeply moving and laugh-aloud funny

O'Connor's gift is to weave whimsical moments in between the complexity of relationships and people... a beautiful story

An ambitious celebration of friendship, theatre and the power of darkness, Shadowplay is chilling and dramatic in equal measure

A wonderfully evocative tale within a tale

A thrilling novel, exquisitely contrived to show the characters whose loves and lives inspired Dracula. A great tribute, and a work of art. Deeply affecting.