An immensely readable, passionately written epic, with an involving, fast-moving plot constantly challenging readers' assumptions

Young readers will find themselves swept along with Breslin's engaging cast into a world where duty and compassion must somehow co-exist

Breslin brilliantly weaves the themes of emancipation, class, love, propaganda and the machinations of war into the story of how these young lives are changed with a light touch that belies the seriousness of the subject

Breslin's light touch and beautiful prose give the harrowing sights and sounds of the war a much more human feel . . . A novel that will stay with me for a long time

Theresa Breslin is simply a superb writer and I strongly recommend this novel to all readers

An authentic exploration of everyday life in contemporary Japan

With its ex-pat angst and debauched air of moral ambiguity set amid the sinister demi-monde of the Far East’s corrupt gambling dens, Osborne’s darkly introspective study of decline and decay conjures apt comparisons to Paul Bowles, Graham Greene, and V. S. Naipaul.

The beauty of this novel is in the elegance and precision of its prose, which renders the glaring kitsch of Macau into a series of exquisite miniatures, and draws on Osborne's reserves as a travel writer.

Lawrence Osborne’s latest will leave you breathless… [It] will screw up your guts with anxiety, fill you with hope and then kick you hard in the b****cks all in one well-weighted read. No need to gamble -- it's an absolute winner of a book.

A brisk, electrifying read, as elegant in negotiating the rackety world it depicts as its bow-tied narrator

Compelling… following Doyle’s drift from card table to hotel to humid streets is immersive and will leave you restless, looking for stamps in your passport…

A bleak and enjoyable account of someone who, perhaps through unacknowledged guilt, finds bitter solace in losing and in driving himself towards extinction.

Just as Doyle’s game of choice, Baccarat, urges him to keep turning over one hand after another, Osborne’s sharp, compelling prose is equally addictive – just one more page, one more page

Osborne shows an impeccable facility for capturing the sweat-soaked suspense of the high-stakes card table

This is a good, fast read about what it is to win, and what it is to lose

This is a thought-provoking and chilling thriller

A pure treat from the cover to the very last page

Mutli-layered and absorbing... Kushner's style is sure and sharp, studded with illuminating images... Kushner has fashioned a story that will linger like a whiff of decadent Colony perfume

Fresh and compelling. Kushner takes us to a place and time we've seldom visited before

A stunner of a novel... A fluid, eye-opening symphony of a book

With its sharp detail and precisely drawn characters, Telex from Cuba offers a compelling look at a paradise corrupted

Telex from Cuba elegantly weaves together a gripping story of individuals and their lives leading up to one of the most notorious revolutions of the twentieth century

A dazzling debut… Wickedly funny.

This dazzling firework of a debut novel is a reminder of how inventive and original historical fiction can be.

Eyre pulls off a notable trick in Viper Wine, not just by reconstructing her chosen period but rendering it permeable to intrusions from other ages… Playful moments…are made all the more striking by being woven unannounced into a meticulously luscious fantasia on a theme of English high life in the 1630s.

The horrors of the beauty industry are taken apart with feline wit and the book will make you purr with pleasure.

The most richly fruited post-modern novel since Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherrys

A bold, impressive debut

As a debut novel, it is truly dazzling and Hermione Eyre has proved herself an author well worth watching out for

Profoundly moving