A pulsing comedy of country manners. A five-alarm blaze of a book. Just about perfick.

A gently, anarchic wish-fulfilling daydream

A perfick piece of entertainment

A wistful daydream about innocence and happiness

Pop Larkin, Ma and their progeny . . . are essentially English of the rich and ribald England of Chaucer and Shakespeare. A superb and timeless comedy

As funny as Evelyn Waugh and as enchanting as Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie. Don't miss it

They are absolute comfort books

Pop is as sexy, genial, generous, and boozy as ever. Ma is a worthy match for him in all these qualities

As funny as Evelyn Waugh and as enchanting as Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie. Don't miss it

Pop Larkin, Ma and their progeny . . . are essentially English of the rich and ribald England of Chaucer and Shakespeare. A superb and timeless comedy

A perfick piece of entertainment

A wistful daydream about innocence and happiness

A pulsing comedy of country manners. A five-alarm blaze of a book. Just about perfick

The Larkins live - these novels please us by escaping definition

The book is steeped in lost hopes and disappointments, with each sentence as powerful as a Larkin poem. I didn't know a British novelist could still be this good

McEwan is word-perfect at handling the awkward comedy of this relationship and, as ever, turning it into something far more disturbing

Two characters so vibrant they step straight off the page

McEwan's brilliance as a novelist lies in his ability to isolate discrete moments in life and invest them with incredible significance

McEwan's style is lean and clear...every sentence feels carefully crafted, the words all perfectly in place

A tightly focused human drama... McEwan gives the reader access to both characters' thoughts with his usual skill, and the comedy of embarrassment, or of the kind of erotic misunderstanding that Milan Kundera used to specialise in, quickly disappears as the marital bed begins to seem more and more ominous... The bedroom scene itself is carried off brilliantly

A fine book, homing in with devastating precision on a kind of Englishness which McEwan understands better than any other living writer, the Englishness of deceit, evasion, repression and regret. In On Chesil Beach McEwan has combined the intensity of his narrowly focused early work with his more expansive later flowered to devastating effect

McEwan is the kind of author who can say more in a sentence than most can say in a chapter...This is a thoughtful book which provokes thought. But more immediately than that, this is a book which, while managing to be very funny, gives us a wonderful and moving portrait of a specific time, and two of its hostages, and of how to make a mess of love

McEwan conveys the near-numinous significance of a single moment with quiet, almost unbearable grace

A heavenly read

Simmering with tension and fraught with tales of failed friendship and broken relationships, this is a fantastic summer read.

Satisfyingly full of suspense with engaging characters

A thrilling new novel about friendship, trust and the thin line that often occurs between what is perceived as morally right and wrong . . . another page-turning, addictive read

Gripping stuff

A satisfying page-turner

Page turner

Gripping, twisty and written with Koomson’s trademark brilliance, this is pure class

A real page turner

Love, loss, new beginnings and saying goodbye, it's all in here. A moving read

A terrific novel.

[Segal's] descriptions are spare and unerring; everyday family interactions are observed warmly and yet with precision

Evans' writing is like water; her sentences ebb and flow and change course, mirroring the Thames as it wends its way in and around the characters' lives

A masterpiece of modern living

An amazing book full of wisdom and empathy

An immersive look into friendship, parenthood, sex, and grief - as well as the fragility of love. It is told with such detail, you're left wanting more

Beautifully written and observed

Evans is extraordinarily good on the minutiae of grief, family, and the fragility of love

a lyrical portrait of modern London