A significant, dazzling debut

[A] ravishing first novel...gorgeous

Told with wry, understated compassion, this engrossing novel ponders the challenges of growing up gifted

Keegan's vivid, splashy prose and off-the-wall humour suit the story of the harrowing traumas of an adolescence...Swimming's, moving, exhilarating story of love, sport, triumph and loss is pretty much a winner

Keegan's shimmering, fluid prose is outwardly playful, yet this is a seriously well-crafted novel

Nicola Keegan's prose is filled with inventive riffs to draw out the poignant turbulences of her heroine, both in the water and out. Reading the book becomes itself like a long, sinuous surge through the pool...Keegan stitches all of this adeptly to deliver a classy fiction about the tenuous relationship of worldly success to the intimate self

Beautifully written ... An ultimately joyful book about surviving emotional trauma, Swimming is also a remarkable portrait of the self-absorption and sacrifice needed to win gold

If Jane Bowles and Gerard Manley Hopkins had a lovechild, she might just possibly write as gloriously as Nicola Keegan. Swimming is a novel for people who love donut holes, or the dead, or dogs, or nuns, or fat people, or world class athletes, or the English language, or pretty much anything. It should be read, re-read, dreamed about, quoted to friends, and enacted as a shimmery odd hilarious mystery play. Swimming is simply magnificent.

Written with verve and bursts of wild humour', 'It's an enlightening plunge into a world that we all come to know more about soon

A terrific thriller.

The characters are well-rounded and interesting…the imagery beautifully described… I enjoyed The 13th Sacrifice immensely, and will definitely be following the Witch Hunt saga with interest.

For Christmas, I will give to dinner party conversationalists:... Tom Wolfe’s Back to Blood.

What really drives all this is Wolfe’s extraordinary style.

As broad and panoramic as ever.

There are some dazzling satirical riffs and politically incorrect laughs.

Wolfe’s prose is as punchy as ever.

Energetically set against the deco licentiousness of Florida’s steamiest party capital.

Class, family, wealth and corruption are all themes in this examination of life in Miami.

[Tells] us about the way we live now... enjoyable.

Classic Wolfe. A delight

Epic, hectic, satirical… It’s scathing, funny, and has great set-piece scenes

Contemporary Miami gets the Wolfe treatment in a grand, sweeping satire on race, class, lust and immigration