Packs a real emotional punch...Pears, who could not write an ugly sentence if he tried ... His portrait of a family at a time of change is also a lament for a country which is losing its environmental way.

Beautifully understated...A low-key family gathering in the Welsh Marches blossoms into an elegiac meditation on our relationship with the land we inhabit.

'Delightful ... Pears has terrific fun with his cast and is highly skilled at drawing out foibles and grudges

Very sympathetic, intelligent and moving ... Pears's depiction of enduring married love is beautifully done ... Pears is so adept at the illuminating detail, writes so beautifully of the pleasures of life ... it is a warm and affirmative novel, one which offers incidental joys on every page. It is perhaps the finest book he has written yet.

A thorough examination of nostalgia itself.

A poignant tale about a mother watching her children grow up and marry, and her sadness as they drift further away. Joanna's descriptive writing expresses true wrought emotion and hurt

The author's psychology, as always, is sound, the plotting secure and the pacing brisk and page-turning. Another winner

Sociologically and psychologically as observant as ever

Book of the Month: An intuitive and sympathetically observed piece of writing

Trollope writes with customary compassion and humanity in this heartwarming and engaging novel

A very superior work of women's fiction... an exceedingly skilled analysis of the relationship between different generations of women and how the power shifts as the old, as they must, get old and the young move on... it is a story told beautifully

The legendary Ms Trollope triumphs yet again, with her latest slick of classy chick-lit

This thoroughly engaging, intelligent, literate novel

The brilliantly observed portrayal of family life is wonderfully compelling - and a story many will be able to identify with. ****

The perfect childs' voice... I read Annabel in two days thus breaking all my rules about taking time with my reading and having 'thinking rests', and I can't tell you how much this book has filled my thoughts since... just occasionally I think I have to beg and grovel and say 'pleeeeeeeeeeeease don't miss Annabel' . It will be in my top reads of 2011 no matter how many good books follow...I am very much hoping to see this on tomorrow's Orange Prize short list

A mesmerising combination of crisp language, deep empathy for her well-wrought characters, and a world-savvy wisdom. Annabel is an unforgettable novel

The writing was very crisp and precise, with many beautiful descriptions

Kathleen Winter isn't afraid to tackle a tough subject head on. Annabel is an extraordinary novel

Winter writes beautifully, and the sensational side of the story is handled elegantly

Funny and tender, charming and moving...a genuine pleasure to read

A Man of Parts has the lovely, loquacious qualities that typify eccentric wonders such as The War of the Worlds and The History of Mr Polly. David Lodge reminds us that Wells, an imperfect man, is still a worthy witness to his own world and to those worlds that may yet to come.

Lodge understands the Edwardian literary and political scene extremely well, and traces Wells's entanglements with the louche world of Fabians and free lovers with real intimacy

As protean, elusive but compelling as it's hero, David Lodge's bio-novel about HG Wells breaks all the rules but still grips the reader - like Wells himself

A wry, racy and absorbing biographical novel

Lodge knows how to tease the inner man out from behind the historical figure, subjecting Wells to probing interviews throughout the book in which his deeper beliefs and contradictions are laid bare

This fictionalised version of HG Wells dramatises the author's life, which was full of politics, writing and women

David Lodge's HG Wells was both a visionary and a chancer; as arrogant as he was insecure; with as many noble goals as base instincts; a mass of very human contradictions; as Lodge has it, a man of parts