A beautiful story of family and loss. Haunting and compelling.

A quickly engaging domestic mystery … gently ingenious

Davies is an unfussy and intelligent storyteller with a gift for translating the complexities of ordinary lives into novelistic form

This moving tale of life-long searches and accountability will pull at the heart strings

An absorbing, beautifully-written and very topical novel … Part mystery-novel, part historical, it is both readable and entertaining.

Family Likeness is a story of prejudice, war, secrets and the search to belong, which follows parallel stories of a child growing up in 18th century Kenwood House, and another in a 1950s children’s home.

A thoughtful and involving look at the social consequences of race and illegitimacy and how one’s need for a place to belong never really goes away.

A suspenseful novel. Muriel’s story, infused with the sadness of growing up not knowing why her parents abandoned her, has a ripple effect throughout the lives of the other characters ... culminating is some remarkable and moving scenes.

Family Likeness is a fascinating story, and a moving exploration of issues of race, family and belonging.

A mix of compelling family story, exquisite historical detail and layers of mystery, this is a very satisfying novel indeed. One of this summer’s must reads!

Family secrets and lies haunt the book.

Kaleidoscopic... Glints with occasional shards of comedy as black as the charcoal used to obscure female beauty

This is a harrowing, compelling story, and will stay with you for a very long time

This is an illuminating tale of womanhood in rural Mexico and a stunning portrait of a hopeful heroine in the face of adversity

This is a rollercoaster of a novel that will make you laugh, wince and gasp. We look forwards to reading more of Clement’s work

Lyrical, disturbing and not without optimism

Clement's first-person telling of the story through her spirited narrator…in spare prose delivers emotional immediacy and demands engagement.

The most enchanting journey I’ve taken in a long, long time, and the most important. Prayers For The Stolen is a hand-guided tour through a ruthless true corner of our century, with characters so alive they will burrow into your heart like worms. Stunningly written, magically detailed, you see, smell and taste the action on every page, feel every foible, and miss the candour of these funny, achingly human voices long after you put them down. As the heroine herself might say: not something to read but to lick off a plate.

Prayers For the Stolen is a magnificent story, as filled with a wisdom so dense and ancient as to seem almost unbearable. One wants to turn away, but cannot. It’s a mesmerizing read, illustrative of the idea that even traces of beauty, deeply felt, can help carry a traveler through the harshest landscape, or the harshest life.

A stroke of genius, as the advantages of having a naive, literal-minded boy in the driving seat are manifold...we do learn what it might fe el like to have Asperger's Syndrome.

A truly original work of fiction . . .a unique tale

excellent

A wonderful first person narrative of a boy with Asperger;s Syndrome; funny, sad and extraordinarily original

The highlight of the year

This is the magazine of the National Autistic Society: the review is written by someone with Asperger's Syndrome. "This book is a good murder mystery story but a better description of how th mind of a different person with some kind of special need looks upon how things work and come about.

This startlingly original story . . . Has surprised everyone-not least the author.The book is funny, gripping, sad and unstintingly entertaining.

So if you're interested in solving mysteries and want to learn about autism in children, you'll love this book

A triumph from first page to last . . . Haddon's prose is empathetic and you cannot help but be drawn into young Christpher's world

This is a unique book written from the perspective of a unique character . . . It is very easy to read and would satisfy anyone from eight to 88

I found this book highly entertaining and enthralling though it was a bit sad at times.

Zusak combines his descriptions of the terrible events of 1939 Nazi Germany with such believable characters that it will appeal to adult readers and children alike

Bulawayo, whose prose is warm and clear and unfussy, maintains Darling's singular voice throughout, even as her heroine struggles to find her footing. Her hard, funny first novel is a triumph.

Wonderfully, this is a novel whipped with the complexities of African identities in a post-colonial and globalised world and its most compelling theme is that of contemporary displacement, a theme that will resonate with many readers

This is a young author to watch

This is a very readable tale, thanks to some excellent writing and its central character: a likeable heroine in a difficult world

We Need New Names is a distinct and hyper-contemporary treatment of the old You Can’t Go Home Again mould, and the book has more than enough going for it to easily graduate from the Booker longlist to the final six

deeply felt and fiercely written first novel

Bulawayo's novel may scream Africa, but her deft and often comic prose captures memories and tastes, among them the bitterness of disappointment, that transcend borders

Bulawayo excels... there is an inevitable nod to Achebe and the verbal delights and child's-eye view of the world is redolent of The God of Small Things. Otherwise, the magic is all Bulawayo's own

Proof again that the Caine prize for African writers really knows how to pick a winner… [It’s] a tour de force. Ten-year-old Darling is an unforgettable and necessary new voice: add her to the literary cannon

This brilliant novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

An exceptionally fine novel, as powerful and memorable as Coetzee's magnificent Disgrace... We need new novels like this – authentic, original and cathartic

There is no doubt that a new star of African female writing is truly born. The one-to-watch

Follow ten-year-old Darling from the Paradise shantytown to America in this searing indictment of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

Shocking, often heartbreaking – but also pulsing with energy

A poignant, witty, original and lyrical coming of age story

Talented and ambitious

A powerful fictional condemnation of global inequality

From the opening chapter…the first-person narrative achieves a breathtaking vibrancy, ambition and pathos

Deserved all the publicity it got