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Superpowers
Superpowers
Dec 27, 2025 6:46 PM

Author:David J Schwartz

Superpowers

A party in a college flat in May 2001. A case of dodgy home-brewed beer. A violent storm. Next day: the mother of all hangovers. What would you do if you the morning after the night before brought a banging head, a raging thirst... Oh, and your very own superpower?

Meet the All-Stars: Harriet, Charlie, Caroline, Mary-Beth and Jack. Harriet can make herself invisible, Charlie can read your mind, Caroline can fly, and Jack, well, Jack can run faster than a speeding bullet.

Determined to become costumed crime-fighters, but baffled by the lack of super-villains to tackle, the quintet soon finds that the ramifications of their new powers are more complicated than they anticipated, and that humans (even themselves) are much more fragile than they'd realised.

Reviews

A first novel with superpowers, smarts and heart to spare

—— Kelly Link, author of Stranger Things Happen

A thoughtful and convincing blend of magic and realism... Superpowers tells us a story both soaring and sober

—— Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

Schwartz strikes the right balance between vicarious superhero adventure and thoughtful reflection on the hidden costs of being a Good Samaritan

—— Booklist

The pace is fast and furious ... a real page-turner

—— Irish Tatler

Honest and funny

—— U Magazine

Lots of tears and even more laughs ... a confident debut

—— Irish Times

Funny - side-splittingly so, which is a difficult balance to strike considering the weight of the subject matter

—— Ireland on Sunday

Mix Bridget Jones with Charlotte from Sex and the City and you've got Emma, the charming heroine of The Baby Trail, and a funny, feisty guide through the realities and hilarities of twenty-first century baby-making. A terrific read ...

—— Jennifer Weiner

Morrison writes about endless sex without missing a beat, partly because his warm, witty, poignant novel is as much about 21st-century consumption as its is consummation

—— Metro

Seedy and undeniably erotic, this is the best book on sex since John Updike's Couples

—— Arena

As dirty a debut as Adam Thirlwell's brilliant Politics.... And just as funny and thought-provoking

—— Daily Sport

A daring, poetic, provocative, cleansing novel

—— De Volkskrant

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton
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