Author:Sally Stewart
Young Janey Rowland lived in Linden Mews, in the flat over the garage. She was the housekeeper's daughter, the chauffeur's daughter, and even though she was a bright and sensitive child, she had been taught to know her place when it came to going round to the big house - the Marchant house - in Linden Square.
But the two families - on the surface separated by a gulf of birth, wealth and breeding - were deeply involved and reliant on each other. Old secrets, old emotions, seethed beneath the respectable facade they preserved between them. And then the war came.
As the barriers between the Marchants and the Rowlands began to crumble, so Jane - quiet, beautiful, and with a great capacity for love - began to become more and more the hub of the wealthy Marchant family, the one on whom they all depended, the one who had to unravel and solve the emotional disasters left over from the past.
An unforgettable journey into criminal behaviour that takes me back to my own childhood fantasies
—— Malcolm McLaren , GuardianThe power of [Dickens] is so amazing, that the reader at once becomes his captive
—— William Makepeace ThackerayDickens is huge - like the sky. Pick any page of Dickens and it's immediately recognizable as him, yet he might be doing social satire, or farce, or horror, or a psychological study of a murderer - or any combination of these
—— Susanna ClarkeThe image of little Oliver Twist victimised by poverty, almost seduced by the specious excitement of crime, and then offered the possibility of a lucrative career in authorship is always compelling
—— GuardianWe leave him most reluctantly, and so will every reader who has any capacity to see and feel whatsoever is most loveable, hateful, or laughable, in the character of the everyday life about him
—— ExaminerDickens has genius to vivify his observation
—— SpectatorHe deals truly with human nature, which never can degrade; he takes up everything, good, bad, or indifferent, which he works up into a rich alluvial deposit.He is natural, and that never can be ridiculous
—— Quarterly ReviewA moving novel about family duty and friendship set against a London backdrop of national unrest
—— GraziaDeftly controlled and exquisitely measured
—— Brian Donaldson , The ListHow would Socrates get on in 21st century Britain? This is the question at the heart of Samantha Harvey's ambitious second novel
—— James Walton , Daily MailThe beauty of the intense plot lies in its economy. The novel is so finely tuned, it is hard to find any passage where she is not fully in control. No matter how dramatic the events she describes, they never drown the ideas being discussed.
—— Anna Aslanyan , Literary ReviewHarvey's talent is in the details of both characters and relationships that seem trivial but are telling ... Harvey is a master of language, adept at both Wildean one-liners ... and more profound expression
—— Rosamund Urwin , Evening StandardIn this Socrates-like story Samantha Harvey examines a dramatic sibling relationship whilst questioning the place of philosophy in modern life
—— Big Issue in the NorthLovely observations on a sibling relationship
—— Lesley McDowell , Glasgow Sunday HeraldGraceful and full of sharp observation and moments of understated pathos
—— Carol Birch , Guardian[A] satirical debut about the newspaper business
—— Stand PointA cutting, hilarious portrait of British print journalism... An entirely human story that brilliantly recreates and analyses the recent past
—— The TimesThose gripped by the escalating News International scandal might enjoy the latest newspaper novel Annalena McAfee's The Spoiler
—— Glasgow Heraldauthentic, entertaining and draws on her own experience as an arts journalist
—— Daily ExpressThe Spoiler - set in the halcyon days before phone hacking - was one of the funniest and sharpest fleet street novels in years.
—— David Robson , Sunday Telegraph SevenMcAfee - herself a former journalist - evokes two distinct eras and styles of journalism, that of fearless frontline reportage and that of its successor: style-oriented, celebrity-obsessed features coverage... This is a pacy read that leaves little doubt in the reader's mind that one school of journalism deserves more mourning than the other
—— Alex Clark , GuardianMarvellous satire...the novel is cunningly plotted and satisfyingly nuanced
—— Independent on SundayIf the peek into the world of newspaper journalism afforded by the Leveson inquiry has you gasping for more, then this timely paperback release is perfect...a fiendishly funny (and frighteningly plausible) world of fiddled expenses and suspect tactics
—— ShortlistThoroughly enjoyable behind-the-scenes expose of an ambitious celebrity journalist's attempt to nail the scoop of her life
—— MetroThis is the paperback edition. The hardback appeared before the News Corporation bosses were dragged into the Commons. McAfee was either very prescient or close to the action, holding her fictional hacks to account for printing false stories gleaned from disreputable sources
—— Julia Fernandez , Time OutThis fictionalised version of HG Wells dramatises the author's life, which was full of politics, writing and women
—— Daily TelegraphDavid Lodge's HG Wells was both a visionary and a chancer; as arrogant as he was insecure; with as many noble goals as base instincts; a mass of very human contradictions; as Lodge has it, a man of parts
—— Sunday Express