A tragedy backlit by beauty

For Fitzgerald desolation is a precondition of the lyrical. Hence the most distinctive impression of Tender: a beautiful novel about failure

It is one of those books that you read and feel a shift...the story is told so poetically and eloquently. It is one of those books that you read and think: if I could only remember that sentence - it is so beautiful

No one has written more elegiacally about America... Fitzgerald, like his revered Keats, was a compulsive nostalgic, locating happiness in the search for sensation rather than in its realisation; in the dream of desire, not in its fulfilment

In just a snatch of dialogue or a few lines of description, Fitzgerald can evoke the happy, troubled and perilous balance of a group of friends... He has an acute eye and ear for the nuances of character... an exquisitely crafted piece of fiction

Breathtaking... an astounding achievement

Edward Rutherfurd has written about Dublin with love. It is an expertly researched and highly readable account of a place he has grown to know well'

Sublime talent ... this is history with a human face and a fanciful soul

If you are looking for something light and provocative for the beach this is a great little number

an engaging, warm-hearted novel'

[A] comic masterpiece

Comic, satisfying, thought-provoking, addictive

It's his supreme skill in mastering a lengthily interwoven chronicle, the evolution of such a range and variety of pin-point characters, the wit and the cultural ambition that give the novel a unique place in English Literature.

The London Train is an intelligent and gently manipulative story of human weakness and lies... Wicked but delightful

Hadley offers first-class views on the psychological scenery of 21st-century Britain

A passionate, hilarious look at mid-twentieth-century Britain.

Something I know I love ... Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, which I could read endlessly.

I’m bowled over, hooked and, hurrah, there are 11 more volumes to go as Jenkins grows up. Terrific.

A highly accomplished debut, this is a chilling portrait of racial tension, social immorality, betrayal and love, and also an atmospheric examination of the end of innocence.

The writing is strong and though the sections featuring Gay's earlier life lose momentum, the story picks up pace when the girls' paths become entwined and the conclusion is compelling and thrillingly macabre.

This fictional account of a true story gives a darkly shocking version of the events surrounding this tragic case.

Brilliantly melds a factual post-war murder into a dark fictional tale