A particular treat for Adams buffs

A funny and thoroughly entertaining chunk of pure British silliness – the very meaning of life.

*****

Adam Foulds is the real deal… it’s the details of the writing itself – the precision of the word selection combined with the precision of the observation – that make for such enjoyable reading.

This mordantly clever story about fame, fantasy and narcissism… is deliciously funny… Foulds is a very fine writer.

An exquisitely concocted, riveting account of artistic ambition and unrequited love… Foulds is proving himself to be a very versatile writer of intelligence and charm.

Everyone loves a good page-turner full of aspirational scene-setting, but few literary novelists dare to try it… [Dream Sequence] is a sexy, celeby drama… just like The Great Gatsby, this novel billows around you like a queasy dream, its grand scenery and awful characters combining to take us out of the real world and into another, oddly shimmering version of it.

A nuanced, original and sharply observed study of fame and power… [a] spare and beautifully written novel.

Foulds's observations are spot-on and his prose is delicious sharp.

Funny, dramatic and poignant. The final five pages of the novel resolve in a masterly poetic unification of suspense and feeling. Adam Foulds… has won many literary awards and this new work deserves to win another.

Absorbing and beautifully written, Foulds’ novel is particularly illuminating on the actor’s craft and the nature of fame.

[A] lucid, richly detailed and tense novel.

[Adam Foulds's] signature psychological sensitivity and attention to detail... shine through [in Dream Sequence].

[Foulds] is an astute observer of behaviour and speech… acutely tuned in to his characters’ physical experience… many sentences in this book have wings.

Foulds… does not disappoint with this psychological exploration that tests the limits of control.

[A] live-wire exploration of sex and power.

Foulds’s style is the instrument of a virtuoso, at once rich, resonant and startlingly precise… in sentence after perfect sentence, [he] has created something altogether more strange: an acid, amoral tale of hunger and haunting.

Dream Sequence notices everything… intimate and visceral, scratching at the glossy surface of the lives of the characters and underpinning the “vacuum” they move through, together but apart.

Foulds' prose is both evocative and scrupulous… It's a novel wired with anticipation of the central characters' eventual meeting, and it doesn't disappoint.

With shades of JG Ballard, Foulds teases violent subtexts from the blandest urban environments. His polished prose fits the two empty lives perfectly… [a] chilling tale.

The most buzzed-about book of 2018 so far is also the most magical… the definition of ‘must-read’

It feels like 2018 has more than its share of debut novels to get excited about. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar nails the 18th century as convincingly as Francis Spufford in Golden Hill, but with supernatural elements that bring to mind Susannah Clarke and Sarah Perry.’

A deliciously salty slab of historical fiction… The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock crests a new wave of historical fiction that brings the complex lives of historical women out of the shadows.

Big, big things are predicted for this debut. Set in 1785, merchant Jonah Hancock finds himself in possession of a mermaid (“More of a sea-goblin, aint it?”) and is invited by an ageing courtesan to pool their resources and turn it into a society showstopper which just happens to take place in her “high-society parlour” where he meets the wonderful Angelica. Rich in detail and utterly charming, it’s the natural successor to The Essex Serpent and The Miniaturist.

An epic and intricately researched historical novel evokes 1780s London – an era of spectacle, Soho courtesans, lavish parties and dark secrets.

A wonderful romp through Georgian London.

A wonderful read

Beautiful courtesans, destructive mermaids, mercenary madams, raucous sailors; there's little Imogen Hermes Gowar doesn't throw at her extraordinary debut novel. And thanks to her deft, skilfully weaved plot and gorgeous writing, it all comes together beautifully.

A fabulous new author... A wonderfully atmospheric historical novel which is vivid and rich enough in its depiction of 18th century London. Posing questions of social mobility, the status of women and the role of family, this is a debut novel in which you can get lost.

Absolutely delightful... I read it greedily, savouring the characters’ adventures and their wit, resilience and humanity as they contend with the glittering, filthy, dangerous city that was Georgian London. The novel is a well-researched, charming, immensely entertaining read

Immerse yourself in Georgian London... beautiful storytelling with a hint of magic.

I was captivated by this beautiful book until the last perfect sentence

Good god, it is a wonderful book

Exquisitely written, flawlessly imagined, The Mermaid & Mrs Hancock's siren song - of courtesans and merchants, shipwrecks and wonders, love and grief, ambition and passion - will echo like the ocean in a seashell long after the last page is turned.

[A] gripping debut… independence, love, class, death and gender stereotypes — are skilfully explored here through a late 18th-century lens

Beautifully written, sinuous, enchanting, brilliantly researched, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock goes deep into the eighteenth century - its grand front rooms, the secret places, the streets and the ocean that changed everything about Britain and it lays bare the hearts of a cast of unforgettable characters

This story really is spellbinding, an unforgettable jewel of a novel, filled to the brim with intelligence, heart and wit.

Beautifully written… By turns bawdy, witty and moving this is a glorious romp through Georgian London, in “the age of unlikely ascents”. With a truly gorgeous package á la The Essex Serpent, it deserves to be huge

Delightful… A gloriously immersive read, bringing Georgian London vividly to life… The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock impresses with Gowar’s attention to vivid and sensual detail

Its energy, characterisation and great sense of period completely seduced me.

An utterly absorbing read.

A gorgeously immersive novel.

Stunning.

In 2018 [mermaids] are back in vogue.

A terrific debut

The Mermaid And Mrs Hancock is the rare book that actually lives up to its hype and I’d be surprised if it wasn’t this year’s The Essex Serpent. Lush, vivid descriptions of 1780s Soho, proto-feminism, sparkly dialogue and a pleasingly irreverent style, it’s historical fiction even for people who don’t like historical fiction.

A tale of love, family and social status movingly told.

An absorbing tale of curiosity and obsession… Gowar’s prose is marvellous… There’s a beautiful balance of rhythm and intrigue, and an eye for what brings a book alive.

The most anticipated novel of the year.

An accomplished, captivating debut novel.

- The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is a roistering, swaggering, bawdy novel… [a] confident and accomplished debut

Lush, vivid descriptions of 1780s Soho, proto-feminism, sparkly dialogue and a pleasingly irreverent style.

Prose that’s as effervescent as it is intelligent.

Gowar’s prose shimmers.

Rich and humorous, it’s a heady period whirl with a magic realist twist.

A highly impressing debut… An absorbing tale of sex, money, ambition and the lure of the new.

Gowar’s wonderful novel expertly captures that sense of a more fluid society… An engrossing and well-paced novel, shot through with melancholy, yet filled with wonder and desire. The sort of book you lose yourself in for days.

Imogen Hermes Gowar’s bawdy, picturesque romp through the heady miasma of Georgian London is easily one of the most wonderfully immersive, richly drawn books I’ve read in years… This piece of historical fiction is really something special… Some truly exquisite writing.

All-consuming and spellbinding.

Gowar's writing is energetic, and she has wonderful attention both to physical and emotional detail and to the circumstances that constrain lives

This glittering debut novel examines every rung of 18th-century London’s social ladder with keen wit and in delicious detail

A Dazzling account of dreams and desire in Georgian London