Mervyn Peake is a master of the macabre and a traveller through the deeper and darker chasms of the imagination

Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. [The Gormenghast Trilogy] is a very, very great work...a classic of our age

[Peake's books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience

Brims with life . . . and will keep you thoroughly gripped until the truth is revealed.

Warm Irish humour lifts this book into another realm.

A highly readable novel… Freya herself is an impressive creation.

Here is a modern woman to be celebrated in all her contradictions and complexity. It’s fun to be in her company.

One to lose yourself in.

Enjoyed last year’s critically-acclaimed Curtain Call? Then you’ll love Anthony Quinn’s forthcoming novel Freya… Quinn is a gifted storyteller with a particular talent for creating distinctive, believable characters and setting individual lives against key historical moments.

A detailed character sketch… Very convincing and highly readable.

The novel fluently pits a determinedly feminised consciousness against a rapidly changing England divided over immigration, gay rights and a burgeoning youth culture… [Freya is] brilliant, modern, wilful and a fascinatingly unreliable witness to her own flawed character… [Quinn’s] skill at depicting social and political turbulence through the prism of personal experience proves just as nimble [as his previous novels].

Quinn’s willingness fully to detail each of his scenes attests to his years as a film critic… It is a big but nuanced work.

Hugely impressive new novel… The novel is satisfyingly complex and sets you thinking, but most of all you read it, at a gallop in my case, because of the sheer quality of Quinn’s prose – the apparent effortlessness with which he pulls off plotting, pacing and period features… Above all there is his ear for dialogue. The whole is a pure pleasure.

Freya is one of those rare, sympathetic novels that improves the more time the reader gives it.

It is the relationship between the reader and Freya that is most powerful. And, in the end, it is more real than the friendship between Freya and Nancy as you find yourself hoping that this sharp, contrary woman succeeds.

A remarkable portrait of post-war British society, the changing role of women and the barriers faced by female writers… Quinn has a lightness of touch and his deep empathy for his subject makes Freya an engrossing and memorable read.

Brilliantly suspenseful novel… His skill lies in his ability to milk all the nostalgic appeal of his milieu… Quinn is too sharp-eyed, and even his most outlandish characters can bewitch and repel in equal measure. He is particularly good on the trancelike self-absorption of youth… Chapters crescendo towards cliffhanger endings, and the narrative hips on to its immensely satisfying end.

A particularly well-drawn study of a strong-willed and abrasive young woman determined to make her way in a man’s world.

Funny and heartfelt

Really good books have a way of transporting the reader to places they'd never normally go to, opening their eyes to experiences and isssues they wouldn't otherwise consider. Meera Syal does all this and more. A beautifully written novel about female friendship, surrogacy and the problems of late parenthood.

Rich, sensual, earthy and utterly unforced. I was transported.

Alive with malice and grace, this is a taut tale reminiscent of the nightmares of Patricia Highsmith

Prey and predators circle in lush southeast Asian settings that gleam with Osborne’s dazzling skill as a travel-writer

It shines with intrigue, with investigations into the nature of the non-rational, and evil, wrapped up in taught plotting

One of Britain’s most accomplished novelists.

An ingenious and atmospheric novel.

Lawrence Osborne is an experienced, competent author with an impressive knowledge of Asia… Comparisons with Graham Greene seem to be generously offered by other reviewers and I’ve already alluded to Conrad and a Patricia Highsmith yet my impression is that Mr. Osborne has a style all of his own.

McCarthy has put his finger on something, and he’s nailed it very precisely. It’s how we live now. All the information we process every day. What it’s doing to us.