Bowen is "the link that connects Virginia Woolf with Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark."

Ironic comedy as well as tragedy, The Death of the Heart tells a story as old as wickedness: the world's betrayal of innocence

Bowen had a genius for conveying the reader straight into the most powerful and complex regions of the heart

The Long Earth novels are beautifully visual and wittily imagined . . . The Long Utopia . . . serves to remind us just how bewitching and rich this series is, how beautiful is its writing, and vivid its imagination.

There's the sense of two enviably talented writers having fun as they play in an infinite fictional universe.

Surely the makings of a hit ... This book is bound to delight many readers, who will embrace Syal's well-chosen subject, her warm and witty voice and her passionate involvement with the world.

Wonderfully candid .. Syal’s main achievement with this rumbustious, confrontational and ultimately heartbreaking book has been to turn the standard British-Asian displacement narrative on its head

Witty and moving

Sharp comedy

Great read

Sprawling, humorous, sensitive

For sheer scope and ambition Syal makes Dickens and Tolstoy seem single minded. She pulls it off with panache.

Warm, witty, exotic. This wise, indignant novel goes many miles beyond your average celebrity effusion.

Deeply impressive .. Syal has done a beautiful job on the very modern problems faced by women everywhere, and the compromises they make and the inevitability of ageing.

Syal's main achievement with this rumbustious, confrontational and heartbreaking book has been to turn the stand British-Asian displacement narrative on its head.

A frank and beautifully written tale of friendship and motherhood.

Funny, wise, warm, confidently straddling the contrasting cultures of Britain and India and acutely perceptive about both.

Gives much food for thought. I can imagine many reading groups debating this well into the evening. Highly recommended.

Funny, direct and very topical. Syal's compelling novel touches on red-hot feminine issues that cry out to be discussed, preferably in a book group, with plenty of wine.

Really good books have a way of transporting the reader to places they'd never normally go to, opening their eyes to experiences and isssues they wouldn't otherwise consider. Meera Syal does all this and more. A beautifully written novel about female friendship, surrogacy and the problems of late parenthood.

Rich, sensual, earthy and utterly unforced. I was transported.

A very impressive, must read for fans of STATION ELEVEN, so unsettling but subtle too. I loved FIND ME…

a moving, and frequently funny, exploration of character and of trauma

so compelling ... an unforgettable debut

a wonderful read

Like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, van den Berg’s debut novel presents a frighteningly plausible near-future dystopia grounded in human elements… heartbreakingly real and compellingly wrought

Find Me, her transfixing first novel, is in keeping with her short stories thematically, and yet, in its deep soundings, it’s a commanding departure. . . Van den Berg’s enveloping novel of a plague and a seeker in an endangered world reveals what it feels like to grow up unwanted and unknown in a civilization hell-bent on self-destruction. It is also a beautifully strange, sad, and provocative inquiry into our failure to love, cherish, and protect. But ultimately, Find Me is a delving story of courage, persistence, and hope

In Find Me, van den Berg depicts a life slowly coming into focus—it’s blurry and impressionistic at times, sometimes deliriously scattered. But out of the fog of memory and the haze of drugs emerges a sense of clarity that’s deep and moving and real

From this memorable novel's eerie first paragraph to its enigmatic ending, Laura van den Berg has invented something beautiful indeed

This is one of my favorite novels of 2015, and we’re not even IN 2015 yet . . .The language is beautiful, spare, and carefully crafted, and the characters are fully realized and unforgettable. There is tension and redemption and insight and even humor in these pages, and they make for a really incredible read

Surreal adventures blend with a reflective and sad sensibility in van den Berg’s lyrical debut novel

Both novels offer precision of language and metaphor and scene even as what is being constructed feels messy, chaotic, sad, hopeless... Both orphaned and alone in the world, both so completely real, both telling a story that feels important and exciting to read. I feel lucky to have stumbled upon these books this year, and challenged by them to be better

This debut novel by acclaimed short story writer van den Berg tends to lean much closer to the realms of literary fiction with its complex psychology. . . Van den Berg's writing is curiously beautiful

a strange beauty in this apocalyptic tale