Somber and masterfully wrought... Sings with the musical nuance of a poem

Written in prose both aphoristic and lush, which suggests rural speech yet creates a far richer texture, Confession of the Lioness opens as an exploration of a crisis that has multiple roots yet reaches a denouement that blames Kulumani’s problems on a single malaise

A passionate denunciation of patriarchy and violence against women in an east African village... A radical call for change framed in a semitraditional form; a book of profound disenchantment written in language that seeks to re-enchant the world

Replete with some of the most stunning metaphors I've ever encountered... Confessions of the Lioness left me shaken, but also utterly entranced

This remarkable novel impresses on many levels... A beautifully crafted tale about sound and fury, the living and the dead

Brookshaw's translation offers an English-language version that is infused with the music of the original... Couto renders the politics of everyday living poetically but his focus on the status and treatment of women displays a stout refusal to look away from a harsh reality - fiction brings us closer to the truth here than mere facts ever could

One of the richest and most important authors in Africa

It’s a wonderfully exhilarating book and not like anything else. I salute a truly adventurous writer.

It begins at the end, with the unconfirmed reports of an explosion – or explosions – in an ordinary British town. And so the countdown begins. Chapter by chapter, we edge closer tot he tragedy. The updates become shorter and more urgent until we're seconds away from disaster. This is powerful stuff.

Eleanor Update is known for originality, and this compelling new work is surely unique

The Last Minute is not like anything you will have read before, for its concept is quite unique. Eleanor Updale demonstrates a tour de force in writing with this tale... It is hard to imagine how difficult it must be to write such a book, as the elaborateness of the plot is quite exceptional.

A brilliant book for many reasons: the first being that it was really well written, the writing wasn't boring or slow and each character had a different background story and encountered one another so that there were no unnecessary and irrelevant people.

Her control of the unfolding story is superb (we know from a live news report at the start that there has been an explosion) and this highly original, absorbing book showcases the skillful versatility of the author of Johnny Swanson and the Montmorency series.

An extraordinary book that covers just one minute of many people's lives which will all intertwine and end in a catastrophic disaster...This is another exceptional book that stands out from the crowd with its individuality and brilliance and should not be missed!

I thought this book was unique...I would definitely recommend it to anyone who would like to try a different type of book...10/10!

This is, simply put, one of the most incredible books I've ever read.

Greatly executed...you can have your kids entertained for hours with this book

Surprising, gorgeously written, and profoundly unsettling, this genderfluid retelling of Oedipus Rex will sink into your bones and stay there.

Hypnotic, disquieting and thrilling. A concoction of folklore, identity and belonging which sinks its fangs into the heart of you.

Everything Under seeped through to my bones. Reaching new depths hinted at in Fen, language and landscape turn strange, full of creeping horror and beauty. It is precise in its terror, and its tenderness. An ancient myth masterfully remade for our uncertain times.

A fantastically dark reinvention of the myth of Oedipus… a complicated but deeply satisfying novel.

This is a thrilling novel… Like Daisy Johnson’s startling debut, the short-story collection Fen, this lyrical, multi-layered novel explores her deep love and understanding of the natural world and shadowy people eking out a living close to it. She writes beautifully and vividly… with a brooding atmosphere that draws the reader into an uncanny and menacing watery world. It is exquisitely written, but very affecting.

Explores femininity, family and identity with a timeline and narrators that eddy and clash like sticks thrown into a river... like a current, it soon carries you away.

[Daisy Johnson's] first collection Fen drew comparisons to Angela Carter and Graham Swift and there is an otherworldly, folkloric tinge to her inventive first novel although it is set in modern-day, rural England... Beautiful.

Everything Under is an unusual and eerily atmospheric read from new talent Daisy Johnson.

Encompassing myth, fairy tale and haunting language, Johnson's earthy and timeless depictions of gender and sexuality turn an old tale into something entirely current.

Impressive.

Everything Under is otherworldly and captivating… a book that is as beautifully human as it is delightfully strange.

Barbed, gripping and marvellously written.

A lovely novel following the author’s usual theme of hope and regret, renewal and contentment

Tyler has the ability to bring character to life in just a few sentences

Anne Tyler’s astute new novel Clock Dance is fuelled by kindness, kindness that begins tentatively with false starts and blind spots and grows into the extravagant all-encompassing sort

I loved Clock Dance

Warmly appealing and sharply observant...combines comic relish with psychological and social shrewdness. Characters pulse with lifelikeness. Dialogue crackles with authenticity. Changes brought about by time are fascinatedly and fascinatingly observed

A moving, often spiky study of relationships and the far-reaching effects of trauma

A thought-provoking story that resonates with emotional depth

Moshfegh’s characters are often so funny in and about their unhappiness that we don’t want them to escape it, or not yet… My Year of Rest and Relaxation is written in multiple modes at once: comedy and tragedy and farce, blurring into one another, climbing on top of one another.

A shocking, hilarious and strangely tender novel.

I love this book. It's funny, I find it intriguing and Moshfegh has a dark voice. I started reading her and thought, 'This sounds like a female Bret Easton Ellis'.

Enthralling. The voice is compelling and witty, drawing one into the experience.

The black comedy draws you in and the mysteries, twists and turns keep you there.

Whip-smart and bleakly funny.

The most inspiring novel of recent years.

Depressing, dystopian, dry and dark, but also strangely comforting and full of the joy of innocent fantasy of withdrawing from a hostile world.

Moshfegh's stunning 2018 novel has a haunting ending... [and] relentlessly vicious humour.

This razor sharp satirical novel has achieved near mythical status... [a] compelling and clever take on a female character that isn't afraid to speak her mind

Ottessa is one of our newest, most dazzling, daring and outrageous voices in literature

A very compelling read… hilarious and depressing and rage-inducing in equal measures.

Absorbing.

Lyrical, bleakly comic and, ultimately, intensely affecting

It is a necessary and compelling book, and this year’s must read

Rachel Kushner’s exhaustive research into what goes on within these walls

Kushner’s high-definition, high-impact prose is as electrifying as it is daring

The momentum of the novel resides in its prose, the spring and sass of a voice so vivid it can largely dispense with the mechanics of plot

A salty and hilarious novel from one of America's best living novelists.

Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room should be a favourite [to win the Man Booker Prize]. If you like your escapism as gritty as it gets, prepare to be hooked by this unflinching account of a female prisoner serving a double life sentence... The Mars Room is rarely easy reading, but the furore of voices and violence and injustice throws you right into the story and keeps you immersed there.

Kushner’s novel is a timely reminder that a country’s authoritarian tendencies can be most easily measured by the number of people it deems unworthy of freedom

Rachel Kushner knows how to sniff out a good character.

Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room immerses you in the life of a high-security women’s prison in California, its central character Romy – accused of killing her stalker – both gritty and fragile. This was not a subject I thought would grip me, but in Kushner’s firm hands I was entranced. Much of the book is autobiographical – while never in prison herself, Kushner was the daughter of Beatniks and allowed to roam the dodgier areas of San Francisco as a teenager. The characters range from bullet-headed killers to a well-meaning male teacher whose ambiguities are brilliantly done. Romy’s trans friend Conan, “shoulders as broad as the aisle, and a jawline beard”, is delightfully free of the politically correct, while the style veers excitingly from straight narrative to scribbled lists like whimpers of despair.

Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room was a hot favourite on this year's Booker shortlist, and it's easy to see why… Kushner's atmospheric writing is compelling to the last.

Kushner’s writing is the most marvellous I read this year… time and again I found myself rereading paragraphs of The Mars Room for her perfectly turned sentences, the music of her prose

[A] brilliantly compelling read