Nicola Monaghan has produced an utterly compelling and depressing narrative of life on a council estate in one of Nottingham’s worst boroughs… [A]n inspiring debut.

Kerrie Ann's strident voice sounds authentic; her plight compelling and affecting

Monaghan's novel is direct and deceptively simple. In spite of the suffering there are surprising touches of humour and tenderness that bloom like flowers on asphalt

A shocking glimpse of Nottingham gangland

A powerful, loving and honest new voice

A wonderful novel... I am full of admiration

A gripping tale about how easily a life can spiral out of control

Incredibly impressive debut novel

This is an astute examination of ordinary people confronting extraordinary dilemmas

It is the powerful sense of place that is the most successful element

Beautifully paced, sometimes shocking and never prurient

A powerful story...compelling and sensitively written

A heartbreaking tale ...Winter's novel elegantly allows for the awkward ambiguities of the situation

Annabel is a beautiful book, brimming with heart and uncommon wisdom. Life is ambiguity and flux and mystery, and Kathleen Winter has written a gorgeous, searing love-letter to the possibilities that lie just below the surface of the everyday.

The perfect childs' voice... I read Annabel in two days thus breaking all my rules about taking time with my reading and having 'thinking rests', and I can't tell you how much this book has filled my thoughts since... just occasionally I think I have to beg and grovel and say 'pleeeeeeeeeeeease don't miss Annabel' . It will be in my top reads of 2011 no matter how many good books follow...I am very much hoping to see this on tomorrow's Orange Prize short list

A mesmerising combination of crisp language, deep empathy for her well-wrought characters, and a world-savvy wisdom. Annabel is an unforgettable novel

The writing was very crisp and precise, with many beautiful descriptions

Kathleen Winter isn't afraid to tackle a tough subject head on. Annabel is an extraordinary novel

Winter writes beautifully, and the sensational side of the story is handled elegantly

Funny and tender, charming and moving...a genuine pleasure to read

A Man of Parts has the lovely, loquacious qualities that typify eccentric wonders such as The War of the Worlds and The History of Mr Polly. David Lodge reminds us that Wells, an imperfect man, is still a worthy witness to his own world and to those worlds that may yet to come.

Lodge understands the Edwardian literary and political scene extremely well, and traces Wells's entanglements with the louche world of Fabians and free lovers with real intimacy

As protean, elusive but compelling as it's hero, David Lodge's bio-novel about HG Wells breaks all the rules but still grips the reader - like Wells himself

A wry, racy and absorbing biographical novel

Lodge knows how to tease the inner man out from behind the historical figure, subjecting Wells to probing interviews throughout the book in which his deeper beliefs and contradictions are laid bare

This fictionalised version of HG Wells dramatises the author's life, which was full of politics, writing and women

David Lodge's HG Wells was both a visionary and a chancer; as arrogant as he was insecure; with as many noble goals as base instincts; a mass of very human contradictions; as Lodge has it, a man of parts