Kissing Toads | Fiction - www.zzdbook.com

Kissing Toads

Nov 30, 2025 4:32 AM

Author:Jemma Harvey

Kissing Toads

Delphi, garden programme presenter extraordinaire, and Roo, TV producer and queen of the messy relationship, have been best friends since childhood. As different as night and day, they've been there for each other's every merciless heart-break, every evil critic, and any and all knotty wardrobe choices.

But now, Delphi's career as a C-list celeb seems slightly stuck and the spectre of the has-been garden presenter looms large on the horizon, while Roo's long-time boyfriend has secretly gone and married his long-time Romanian girlfriend. These are dire straits indeed and they decide to ditch their life of urban glamour (Delphi) and overworked late nights (Roo) and sign on for a garden make-over programme in the darkest end of Scotland. Draughty castle, craggy rockstar with ambition to be the laird and a cast of very strange characters included -- the two are in for a big surprise ...

Reviews

A fizzy, feel-good summer romp

—— heat

A sweet, gay romance that gradually morphs into something more suspenseful and macabre

—— Daily Telegraph

A compelling chronicle of love and loss... His most intricate and fully imagined novel

—— San Francisco Chronicle

Irving's storytelling has never been better

—— New York Times

His best since Garp

—— Time

Irving's most entertaining and persuasive novel since The World According to Garp

—— The New York Times

A joy to read

—— Evening Standard

A 21st century London update of American Psycho

—— WBQ

Very slick and very British; a tricky combo to pull off

—— GQ online

A slice of bleakly comic urban paranoia

—— Big Issue

Sutton's black comedy is not only a timely reminder of how we were all suckered by the credit boom, but also a gripping read

—— John Harding , Daily Mail

If you like your stories spoon-fed, this might not be the novel for you. If you can abandon the cutlery, hand sanitiser and table manners - tuck in

—— The Wharf

A cross between Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho and Martin Amis's Money

—— Daily Telegraph

Its ace, addictive and enthralling

—— Danny Wallace , Daily Mail

Blisteringly angry..,begins as a black comedy but gradually turns much darker with the mad-as-hell narrator suspected of murdering his lovers in London

—— Sunday Telegraph

Sutton shows us everything through Freeman's eyes and he pulls it off very well indeed. A horrible character but a compelling narrator

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

Sutton shows us everything through Freeman's eyes and he pulls it off very well indeed

—— William Leith , The Scotsman

This darkly comic novel with it's brilliantly acute observations of life in London in the 21st Century completely captures the zeitgeist and raises more than a few laughs.

—— Carla McKay , Daily Mail

Gripping and darkly comic tale of 21st-century material greed

—— Shortlist

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