More than enough charm, wit and pathos to keep even a Maupin virgin enthralled

A book of considerable charm

Comedy in its most classical form... some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read

May well be the funniest series of novels currently in progress... Maupin's ear for dialogue is as acute as his feeling for characterisation, and the net result is as engaging a read as you are likely to encounter

The Tales of the City sequence has been one of the literary menus plaisirs of the past decade - Maupin with his elegance and charm has found a place among the classics

Wonderfully engaging, warm and witty

Maupin's warm, gossipy style makes Michael Tolliver Lives an undemanding pleasure

Armistead Maupin is in fine form in the delightful, tender and funny Michael Tolliver Lives. The beloved characters from the Tales of the City books are back, and it feels as if they've never been away

Anyone who enjoyed [Maupin's] earlier books will welcome this opportunity for a return trip to its setting... Has the warmth of a reunion long overdue

Maupin remains a great storyteller, a magnificently unrepentant liberal, and a wise, witty observer of the differences which make us human

A creepy tale….set in a country house awash with secrets and strange happenings

She takes relish in recreating a familiar Edwardian landscape, peopled by eligible cads and imperious dowagers... Jones’s highly combustible period piece makes the dramas at Downton look like a stroll in the park

Darkly humorous, quirky and engrossing, this is a ghostly tale full of twists and turns

What a delicious read! Like something written by a wicked Jane Austen, here is love and error in a ramshackle manor house complete with railway survivors, a birthday party and a pony. I was completely captivated by its madcap nature and then, utterly unprepared for the strange fruit that the story became. Passing like a spring fever, here is a fairy tale that stays with you long after it is gone. I couldn't put it down

The Uninvited Guests is at once a shimmering comedy of manners and disturbing commentary on class. It is so well-written, so intricately plotted, that every page delivers some new astonishment. It is a brilliant novel

What opens as an amusing Edwardian country house tale soon becomes a sinister tragi-comedy of errors, in which the dark underbelly of human nature is revealed in true Shakespearean fashion. Sadie Jones is a most talented and imaginative storyteller, and The Uninvited Guests is a very clever novel

I will be surprised if I read anything stranger this year but I can’t help admiring Jones’s whimsical invention and the quality of her writing

A modern Mitford saga

Award-winning Sadie Jones' third novel is her best yet. Hugely enjoyable with a superb, supernatural twist

Cooly playful...the luscious prose is precisely steered

An intelligent and poignant reflection on death and loss… a fabulous read

Sadie Jones…enters new literary territory with a whimsical Edwardian farce that takes its lead from the darker offerings of Saki and JB Priestley...The novel's denouement is satisfyingly outlandish

With elegant ease, Jones spins a good old-fashioned comedy of manners

Andrew Motion brings lyricism but, more importantly, rollicking adventure to this sequel to Treasure Island