An intriguing book that knits together music and life to touch on something profound

Vivid descriptions of contemporary Beijing ... Yu writes in clear, unadorned prose and deftly threads the magic-realist elements through the main narrative

Transporting, searching and poetic

This playful, often surreal novel packs in plenty ... an elusive tale, steeped in atmosphere

Ghost Music has beautiful prose and claustrophobic imagery that intensely evokes its protagonist's alienation

Spellbinding and atmospheric . . . With its quiet, dreamy bending of reality and its precise depiction of many different strains of alienation, Ghost Music is an evocative exploration of what it means to live fully-and the potential consequences of failing to do so. Yu braids the mundane and the magical together with a gentle hand . . . There's something here of early Murakami's graceful, open-ended approach to the uncanny, as well as the vivid yet muted emotionality of Patrick Modiano or Katie Kitamura. Like these skillful portraitists of alienation, Yu conjures a visceral inbetweenness where the worlds of matter and spirit meet in a shared, suspended space

Startlingly original

Intensely atmospheric

Otherwordly and deeply moving

Real magic

Shimmering

Rich and wild

Enchanting

Electric

A startling debut novel... Jacqueline Crooks has crafted a richly textured world... She succeeds with great aplomb

Penetrates a subculture that we are unused to seeing represented in British fiction, depicting it in all its messy, exuberant complexity

Fire Rush is a book with the power to fill and break your heart... One of the strongest debuts of the year

An eye-opening, jaw-dropping story

An immersive debut... This is a triumph

Jacqueline Crooks' lyrical debut dances to the rhythm of the reggae music that pulses throughout it, in a powerful portrait of black womanhood

Incantatory

Exhilarating . . . An adroit novel of ethics

'Lyrical, piercing . . . The New Life is a fine-cut gem, its sentences buffed to a gleam . . . [Crewe's book] brims with élan and feeling, an ode to eros and a lost world, and a warning about the dangers ahead'

'Crewe deserves applause for his vivid scene-setting . . . There's much to admire in this meticulously researched, boldly envisioned debut'

'Nothing less than remarkable . . . A beautiful, brave book that reminds us of the terrible human cost of bigotry; this is a novel against forgetting'

'Rich and engrossing . . . blending the graceful ambiguity of literary fiction with the deftness of a page-turner . . . A smart, sensual debut'

A few established novelists continue to write first-class literary fiction on LGBTQ themes... The debut novel by Tom Crewe...reveals a new talent in the field. It is underpinned by extensive research... [with] a great story at its heart.

The New Life drives with a satisfying pace and a pleasing sense of both conclusion and open endings... how impressive it is that Crewe has synthesised a coherent and compelling fiction from his elements

Superb . . . Remarkably sensuous and intimate

Crewe demonstrates rare promise in this beautifully crafted story about two real-life pioneers who tried to make a case for homosexuality in Victorian Britain... Crewe brings this era pungently to life

[An] incredibly assured debut... A fresh take on the historical novel, with desire at its heart, written with a charged certainty that the personal is political

A rich, panoramic novel stuffed with vivid characters, heartaches and hazards... [a] brilliant debut

Crewe's beautiful novel is filled with nuance and forensic insight into love. Deftly recreating the atmosphere of 1890s London, The New Life is a tour de force of intelligent and empathetic fiction

A debut of impressive skill... Crewe is a trained historian and it shows: the period detail is exquisite

The novel is full of exquisitely drawn detail, right from the opening scene, making the moral and social dilemmas at the centre of the story dynamic and compelling

[A] pitch-perfect debut novel

Sometimes there comes along a debut novel that feels like an immediate classic. Tom Crewe’s The New Life is just such a book. It’s a beautifully crafted, seductive story about illicit desires in Victorian London