Alison Weir's hugely popular history books are as gripping as novels, and now she has stepped effortlessly over the boundary... Weir's knowledge of the background is immaculate, and she revels in the freedom of fiction without sacrificing historical fact. Lady Jane is brave and intelligent, and if you don't cry at the end you have a heart of stone.

Alison Weir is one of our greatest popular historians. In her first work of fiction, she sets out to trace the brief life of one of history's most tragic heroines... Weir manages her heroine's voice brilliantly, respecting the past's distance while conjuring a dignified and fiercely modern spirit.

This is an impressive debut. Weir shows skill at plotting and maintaining tension, and she is clearly going to be a player in the overcrowded historical fiction game. We can look forward to seeing what subject she'll tackle next.

The story is so compelling and horrible that even a reader well acquainted with it will be gripped...This is a novel that will grip readers and give great pleasure.

Gripping and entertaining read... well told and absorbing

Edric writes with fluency and authority... this book is a masterly evocation of London in the last decade of the nineteenth century

Such double happiness! Marilyn Chin in new, top form. What fun!

Effervescent

Wickedly fizzing dialogue... delightful prose

Clever, well paced and structured

Intriguing first novel... The narrative voice floes with wit and vigour...his debut ties author and reader in engaging knots that echo the tangled webs connecting the gossipers and photographers and their privileged fodder

It's uncommonly well written, with a bountiful supply of manic energy... Would Paul Auster kill to write a book as playful, fast-paced and unashamedly populist as this? Doubtful, but somewhere there's a "Paul Auster" who might

Sparky debut

Benedictus takes us on a trail of the contentious highs and lows of the rich and famous in a mixture of dark humour and sharp dialogue. For Benedictus, and his valiant debut novel, more of the same please

The story of the ultimate celeb after-party, it's a knowing wink at publishing and celebrity culture - a high-concept first novel sitting just the right side of salacious

The Afterparty avoids smugness partly because it has more affection that vitriol for the culture that it mocks... It's very funny, but sad, too... Well-drawn characters, smart dialogue and a canny plot