A terrific forensic thriller, with real flesh and blood characters and a plot that never lets up.

A tense and absorbing story...As auspicious as debuts get

Faulks writes with great emotional authority... There are the same escapist pleasures, too: meals are described in rapt, mouthwatering detail, whitewashed villages and Mediterranean seascapes brought to such vivid life that you want to jump on the nearest aeroplane and see them for yourself

Sebastian Faulks's third and most magnificent novel is a 'feel-good' experience from cover to cover

Elevated by some delicate prose, particularly in evocation of childhood and adolescence, A Fool's Alphabet is a poignant and highly readable novel that runs the gamut of experience from well, from A to Z

An ambitious and beautifully crafted novel

A shocking backdrop if recent historical events, Andrea Eames has used a fresh, candid voice to create an intimate, sensitive and moving debut novel

In this assured debut novel, Eames draws on her own interrupted childhood...to paint an authentic portrait of a nation on the edge

The Cry of the Go-Away Bird is a promising debut novel, and Eames's own Zimbabwean childhood colours her writing with vivid descriptions of the earth, wildlife and Shona language

Diary of an Ordinary Woman is certainly more gripping and more immediate than many novels...Forster has pulled off an imaginative feat

Captivating... Like a beloved granny's visit, we're a little bit sorry to see the end approaching

This rich novel, full of pathos, concerns the unbridgeable gaps between generations

Faulks's most vivid character is the odious John Veals, a hedge-fund manager, who relishes all the money that he makes and the power that he quietly exerts... Veals is brilliantly insidious... A thoughtful page-turner... The handsome sunset is heavily, and rightly, weighed down by dark clouds

A tragedy at sea, a miracle on paper... Moore offers us, elegantly, exultantly, the very consciousness of her characters. In this way, she does more than make us feel for them. She makes us feel what they feel, which is the point of literature and maybe even the point of being human.

This mesmerising book is full of tears, and is a graceful meditation on how to survive life's losses

Fans of Anita Shreve and Anne Enright will love this

The gentle, meandering pace of this exquisitely expresses the agony of grief and the confusions and complexities of parental love

Moore's portrayal of loss is remarkably real

Profoundly moving, beautifully written book

A marvellous book

A perfectly pitched novel that captures its characters and their dilemmas.

Lose yourself in a fantastical gastronomical journey ... This novel explores familial love in an unexpected way, and you'll be hooked from the first taste

This emotional and moving tale blew us away with its beauty

It's as beautiful as it is strange. Bender writes such lyrical sentences, you pause over them in wonder. She has an unusual take on life; and makes even the ordinary extraordinary. It's a compulsive page turner. This book is already a best seller in America, and has been embraced by book clubs. I loved it. It's one of those books you don't want to finish - and even when you have - it stays in your mind. Bender has written three previous novels. I intend to savour them all

This novel, in the style of stories like Chocolat, is a dreamy feast of gorgeous writing ... Gently, beautiful, odd, this is a story to sip and savour

An intriguing premise for an original novel about a family and its relationships

Moving and highly original, this book will make you look at food in a whole new light