A poignant, bittersweet love story played out across the east-west divide, it challenges set ideas about loyalty, freedom and ideology

Superb... The divided continent has been at the heart of countless novels over the decades, but few can have been as cleverly crafted or better told than Vesna Goldsworthy's Iron Curtain... Brilliantly written

The pages fly by, and Goldsworthy's careful scrutiny brings warmth and sympathy to her tale of belonging and betrayal. Tense, brooding and often hilarious, Iron Curtain finds bright sparks as well as bleakness in the cold war's dying embers

Vesna Goldsworthy's masterly novel retains the grace and resilience of literary art while wading deep into the most riveting human drama... Goldsworthy is at once the most impartial and the tenderest of observers, a bold dramatist and a subtle humorist

Original and memorable... a profound understanding of the timeless realities of love, betrayal and the desire for revenge

Timely... Daring... A bittersweet tale of loyalty, love and the siren call of freedom

Iron Curtain seized me from its first page and I hardly put it down again until I arrived with reluctance to its stunning conclusion... Moving but also irresistibly enjoyable

An extraordinary evocation of two wildly contrasted worlds... Vesna Goldsworthy writes so well!

This excellent novel is a comedy of manners nevertheless fraught with tension... Goldsworthy captures the human perspective of life in the cold war superbly and sympathetically

A pacy rite-of-passage story that doubles as a portrait of the poisonous legacies of police-state paranoia

Superb

Gripping... With grace and a dose of forgiveness, Goldsworthy performs a heartbreaking but exhilarating evisceration of the myths by which we live now

Goldsworthy's crisply observed and entertaining novel has serious overtones and poses uncomfortable questions, not least about the supposed superiority of the West

A love story that begins in the East and moves to the West. It serves as a timely reminder that the European states once dominated by Soviet ideology were a patchwork of cultures with their own individual histories

[A] well-observed, witty novel

It would be possible to read library stacks' worth of books about what life on the eastern side of the curtain was like, trying to understand the feeling of the late Soviet Union... Or you could read this book

Beautifully crafted... Goldsworthy's evocative descriptions of both worlds - the rigid ice of the east and the damp monotony of the west - lend a filmic quality to this layered novel

Goldsworthy's perceptive and well-crafted story plays like The Americans as revised by Sally Rooney, with acidic observations worthy of the late Kingsley Amis. By flipping the Cold War script, Goldsworthy comes up with a winner.

Witty, poignant and full of surprises - every detail of this cross-cultural story of love and disillusionment rings true.

An unflinching brilliant novel about the mental divide between East and West in Europe in the Cold War era.

Picks up the mantel of writers like Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro . . . but it also stands on its own as a remarkable, propulsive novel. At a moment when state control over women's bodies (and autonomy) seems ever more chilling, the book feels horrifyingly unbelievable and eerily prescient all at once

[An] enthralling speculative debut . . . A powerful story, made more so by its empathetic and complicated heroine

Enthralling....a powerful story, made more so by its empathetic and complicated heroine

A gripping, witty and ultimately redemptive vision of dystopian motherhood

This scarily prescient novel that's reminiscent of Orwell and Vonnegut explores the depths of parents' love, how strictly we judge mothers and each other and the terrifying potential of government overreach

(An) infuriatingly timely debut novel... that may read more like a preview than a dystopia, depending on your faith in the future of Roe v. Wade

No book has ever made me cry this much. The School for Good Mothers is an absolute masterpiece

A powerful story

Chan's high-concept novel may toy with dystopia but it remains chillingly plausible, a portrait of our fanatical culture of judgement against women, and mothers in particular, taken to a grotesquely logical extreme

A nail-biting explosive story exploring the pressures of 'perfect' parenting

The writing is at times hilarious and scalpel sharp

Part science fiction, part incarceration narrative and part Cultural Revolution memoir, it is as gripping as it is terrifying - and for mothers struggling to 'do the right thing', all too believable

Propulsive and provocative

The School For Good Mothers is a perceptive, prescient and daring debut that presents a dystopia that doesn't feel as far away as we'd like it to

An unforgettable an haunting story about the thoughts, opinions and choices you make

Reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale, this eerie page-turner is a captivating depiction of a dystopian world that feels entirely possible. It's not only the gripping story of Frida's personal struggle, but also a thought-provoking work of commentary on American motherhood

I was fascinated and intrigued by this feminist dystopian novel

So brilliant and haunting and ahead of its time... the only book that has ever stopped me from sleeping

An absolutely gripping debut.

Switch the phone to silent, banish all distractions: it's time for a book binge

Fabulous. I loved becoming reacquainted with the Walsh family

A masterclass in creating the perfect follow-up story . . . This sequel shone

Included in 'Best Paperbacks of April 2023'

There aren't many books that come along . . . where on one page you can be laughing hysterically, and then you turn the page and you're nearly in tears for the opposite reason. This is that book. Beautifully told. Loads of warmth, loads of humour.

She is a genius stylist. Her characters are so vivid, her situations feel so real and authentic. This is my favourite book of hers.

Amazing

Enticing

There's light and dark in all Keyes' novels, equal measures of hilarity and heartbreak

Hard to put down

Lovable, funny. Doesn't disappoint

Keyes at the peak of her powers

Praise for Marian Keyes

Messy, tangled complex humans who reminded me that few of us ever really sort out our lives at all

A novel that is warm and witty but never afraid to tackle the big stuff

Magnificently messy lives, brilliantly untangled. Funny, tender and completely absorbing!

Keyes knows how to make serious issues relatable - and get a few grownup laughs, too

There should be a word to describe the sadness and satisfaction you feel when you read the last page of a Marian Keyes novel: the ending is perfect but you still want more, more, more

Charming, funny and poignant. But also profound, heartbreaking

Keyes at her best: capturing everyday voices with humour and empathy with writing that you'll devour in a weekend. Just pure and simple joy

Funny, thought-provoking and will get you right in the feels

Sensitive, funny, wonderful, immensely touching

Marian Keyes's gift for storytelling is utterly magnificent

Rachel Walsh is back with a bang. Wickedly shrewd and fun