A welcome return by the great Shane Connaughton in a novel that shines with truth, humanity and insight on every page. An immense reading pleasure.

A beautiful book, funny and insightful; a completely engaging coming of age story.

Comic fiction at its finest . . . Connaughton brings . . . such lyricism and fondness that his writing is as radiant as it is witty - but there is shade here, too, and the degree of poignancy is brilliantly judged.

An engrossing, calmly constructed novel . . . Connaughton's beautiful sentences draw us through a fertile story that brims with insight, narrative skill and a compelling feeling for landscape, reminding the reader that the past is never as simple as we think we remember it. . . . A flint-hard ear for dialogue . . . its characters leak the pure earthiness which church and barracks never quite repressed.

Connaughton is strong on dialogue . . . abounds with enjoyable anecdotes and flavourful details . . . an intriguing picture of Ireland in the 1950s.

Immersing yourself in Connaughton’s Cavan is a real and rare joy, like calling forth the spirits of two late Johns, the humour and humanity of John B Keane, allied to the insight and truth of John McGahern

A hugely entertaining, fascinating book.

Dan Simmons is brilliant

The best and most unusual historical novel I have read in years . . . a haunting, precisely imagined fictional solution to one of history's most disquieting mysteries . . . brilliantly executed

Brilliant . . . Simmons takes this 19th-century tragedy and crafts an imaginative hybrid tale. It's a historical horror novel . . . the kind of rich epic that requires a touch of patience at the beginning but amply rewards the reader by the end

A beautifully written historical, which injects a note of supernatural horror into the 1840s Franklin expedition and its doomed search for the Northwest Passage . . . should add significantly to Simmons's already considerable reputation

Convincingly renders both period details and the nuts and bolts of polar exploration . . . the supernatural element helps resolve the plot in a surprising yet highly effective manner

This book really is an astonishing achievement, blending meticulous research with excellent characterisation. We can't recommend this one heartily enough

A lengthy and ambitious book, but gut-wrenching tension, a true sense of fear, and vivid historical detail combine for an unputdownable read

[A] terrific novel… Lasdun presents the inexorable turnings of fate in a subtle and disconcerting way.

This sleek, sexy, expertly constructed thriller oozes with a malign, overheated atmosphere.

Lasdun has produced a fascinating study of how friendship can sometimes become obligation.

Irresistibly devious.

Lasdun is a renowned writer.

Expertly playing the noir card, Lasdun dissects the mercurial relationships among a wealthy financier, his photographer wife and an aimless cousin during a long hot summer in upstate New York. There are plenty of lies and betrayals in this stylish thriller, but it’s the slow burn of obsession that makes it sing.

The Man Booker-nominated author's critically praised new novel is a Trump Age thriller: A rich banker and his cousin, an unemployed chef, both covet the banker's wife, who is having an affair with a fourth person. Things end badly.

This is a one-sitting read, a whitewater ride to hell in which Lasdun hurls headlong into the psyche of his stalker, in this instance a thirty-something former chef called Matthew… In fearlessly observing sentences, Lasdun – who has an architectural imagination – unlocks room after room of Matthew’s psyche… Brilliant.

We all wish we could erase, obscure, or even simply accept the past. Perhaps the message of The Fall Guy is that, however extreme our mistakes, we will still regard them as aberrations, bizarre swerves away from our true selves, rather than what they really are: the purest expressions of our prejudices, fears and desires.

Superbly engaging and intelligent psychological thriller… A compulsively readable tale of money, power and betrayal.

A creepy little satire.

A riveting psychological thriller.

The story becomes very intense as Lasdun masterfully turns the screw.

A hugely affecting, moving read. I was heartbroken by the end, but adored every chapter

Beautiful

Each section displays Ryan’s range as a writer... [he] writes with brilliant empathy.

Exquisitely rendered, with raw anguish sublimated into lyrical prose.

Heartbreaking … Arguably the best of the new wave of Irish writers to have emerged over the last decade

Ryan has the gift of ventriloquism - he inhabits his fictional creations thoroughly, enveloping you in their worlds

Sublime

From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan made me laugh and cry and forced me to look strangers in the eye

Beautifully bleak and characterised by his remarkable ability to write about grief and common humanities.

Beautiful, compassionate

Superlatives wouldn’t do for describing From a Low and Quiet Sea … understated, and gloriously heart rendering

Strout turns her clear, incisive gaze on the intricacies and betrayals of small town life

Anything is Possible is predictably great because it's written by Elizabeth Strout, and brilliantly unpredictable - because it is written by Elizabeth Strout