An absolutely riveting novel . . . a rare and precious humanizing of the terrible conflagration in Syria. Eva is a writer of the first order and this is a searing and incredibly important book, storytelling at its best.

Profoundly affecting and deeply soulful . . . This book will stay with me forever.

This warm, captivating and inspiring story shows that even the bottomless horrors of war-torn Syria are no match for the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit and the power of love and friendship.

Compelling and uncompromising.

Incredible... a deeply interesting and loving recounting of not just Sami's experience, but the wider story of the people of Syria.

[The Stray Cats of Homs] burns and it stings; each sentence is an accusation - but to read it is to begin to pay a debt that all of us owe. If you can't alleviate the pain, the least you can do is not shut your eyes to the suffering.

The Stray Cats of Homs brings to life the human, inside story of one of the most brutal sieges in recent history, with Syria's Assad trying to break the will of young rebels daring to stand up to the dictator and taking refuge in an ancient city. The novel is as revealing as it is inspiring with its depictions of the lengths heroes will go to in search of personal freedom.

A vital and affecting narrative ... imbued with emotional and personal authenticity.

[A] beautiful, heart-rending book.

It’s been a long time since a book kept me up all night, but Eva Nour’s The Stray Cats of Homs did. A tender, yet wild and tangible testimony bearing witness to the tragedy in Syria.

One of the greatest successes of The Stray Cats of Homs is that it manages to explain the complexity of the war in Syria through Sami's eyes, without getting bogged down by exactly who did what and when.

An artistically flawless novel, written as an act of protest, but also as a poetic declaration of love.

The Stray Cats of Homs is a study in survival and a portrayal of the utter hell of the Syrian war. The novel reveals what can never be told by the news reports.

An extraordinary novel, filled with grief, warmth and love, that I recommend everyone to read.

I love the way Frances Cha rotates between mindsets to look at how beauty and privilege influence the way women live, whilst maintaining a sly lightness

Make way for Frances Cha, an entrancing new voice who guides us into the complexities and contradictions of modern-day Seoul... I devoured it in a single sitting, and so will you.

I loved this book. It offers a fascinating window on a place and culture I knew little about, and yet from the first page it was intensely relatable - I recognised these women like friends, colleagues or sisters. Invigorating in its honesty and near-filmic in its descriptive power, If I Had Your Face is brilliantly-drawn tableau of the universalities of womanhood, the pressures we grapple with, and the way female bonds can carry us through.

Cha's striking first novel follows four young women in Seoul, South Korea trapped in a sphere of impossible beauty standards

A story of four women in Seoul and the way that economic and social realities determine the paths available to them

An intimate, panoramic debut... An enthralling read from the very first page.

A provoking, ultimately inspiring tale of women pushing back against oppressive customs both traditional and new . . . Frances Cha, like her quartet of narrators, has a rebel's heart

An endearing story of female friendship staged against a backdrop of elitism, sexism and the relentless quest for cosmetic perfection... Enthralling

An insightful, powerful story from a promising new voice

Cha's timely debut deftly explores the impact of impossible beauty standards and male-dominated family money on South Korean women

An eye-opening story of female friendship set against the brutal beauty standards of south Korea

Mesmerizing... weaves together the complexities and contradictions of modern-day Seoul, in an ultimately uplifting story of women living in defiance of oppressive customs

A gripping tale at once unfamiliar and unmistakably universal

A gripping portrait of four young women in South Korea... its focus on the tangled and complicated nature of female friendship is universally familiar and fascinating

Hypnotising... you won't want to put it down until the very last page

You'll find sisterhood at the heart of this ambitious book

Tremain's extraordinary imagination has produced a powerful, unsettling novel in which two worlds and cultures collide

Tremain writes about this part of France so well because she has known it since childhood, and she captures a sensuality in the landscape that is both attractive and eerie... It is an enthralling book about the catastrophic disruption honesty can bring

The novel has all the formal structure of a medieval morality tale, along with its traditional dichotomies: rus and urbe, avarice and asceticism, chastity and lust

Rose Tremain's thrilling Trespass is set in an obsure valley in Southern France... To be read slowly; Tremain's writing is too exquisite to hurry

Timeless but rooted; tangible but otherworldly. Meticulously plotted, with the musty sadness that comes of cleaving to the past, Trespass will reward your reading time

Rose Tremain's novel begins with a scream and barely loosens its grip amid the sumptuously written pages that follow...subtly harnesses the stifling heat and dangerously feral landscape of southern France to unspool a psychologically disconcerting story of family skeletons and outsider tensions

Like a sinister edition of A Place In the Sun directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with the depth and subtlety that make the book far more than a mere thriller