A moving debut from a writer of powerful descriptive range.

Heather Clay is a graceful and assured new writer with a great gift for character: the people in her fiction are as complex, beautiful and real as they are in life. Losing Charlotte is a spellbinding first novel.

Clay expertly describes a world where the natural rhythm of nature is the basis of life - something that is important to the central character until her life is turned upside down when she loses her beloved sister, Charlotte

Bold and confident

A daring and dazzling performance

Then is a devastatingly dark story, and the hypnotic quality of its writing, and the searing vision it lays before us, certainly appear to have sprung from a deep and frightening source

The eeriness of the world outside is conveyed well; as are the horrors that beset the survivors... It is highly readable and involving, offering tantalising clues as the reader tries to navigate the grisly streets of London and the dark corners of the narrator's mind...but the central human narrative is strong and clear, proving that even in darkness there are points of light

One of Myerson's strength's lies in creating atmosphere... Myerson sees the pathos in small details

At first this genre-bending novel feels like a departure for Myerson, but familiar themes kick in – injured children, broken homes, psychological torment. It’s a chilling and original portrait of breakdown

Myerson displays a deft touch at providing the reader with telling, troubling details, clues to what might have happened. Unremittingly bleak, Then is a novel about memory as a woman tries to piece together the fragments of her past

A really compelling story

What Vann does so well is to take recognisably ordinary characters and put them in critical situations, where tiny decisions or actions have life-altering outcomes. This is what gives his books their nightmarish quality -- the feeling that these events could happen to anyone.

I found it impossible to put down. I read it over a couple of rushed afternoons and found myself gasping for air…Days later I still couldn’t get Galen’s voice – that distinctive blend of mocking, vulnerable and cruel – out of my head…It [Dirt] is both brilliant and painful; comic and disturbing; full of despair about humanity and moments of warmth; deranged and beautifully executed.

Vann's writing is vivid and shocking, and his imagination is extraordinary.

Vann presents us with a pitch perfect rendering of the everyday problems of family life, while simultaneously depicting an outlandish and horrifying battle between son, mother and aunt.

Bodice-ripping romp through the West

Missy by Strong and memorable female characters throughout this enjoyable novel