‘THE FRIGHTENED ONES eloquently locates the crux of the Syrian experience, during a time of brutal repression. In this brilliant novel, Dima Wannous tells us the story of the revolution through the voices of two women . . . With its economy of language, this captivating novel leaves us astounded by the ability of literature to create beauty amidst pain.’

'A complex tale of revolution, displacement, delusional love . . . most memorable in surreal details and glancing tales. The analyst Kamil emerges as the novel’s quiet hero – strangely reminiscent of Dr Rieux in Camus’s The Plague'

The nerve-stretching tension and horror of life in Assad’s Syria is conveyed in this cunningly constructed novel… [The Frightened Ones] shortlisted for the Arabic International Prize for Literature, examines how fear strangles lives. It’s brutal and unsettling

A brilliant and terrifying split-personality novel... The novel is full of vivid and terrifying descriptions of the effects of fear

Heather Walter writes about magic-and with magic. Her retelling of Sleeping Beauty remains true to the beloved classic, yet every page is completely new and unexpected.

Enchanting - and enchanted . . . a book to savor

Bewitching characters. Fascinating story. An up-all-night read. Why are you not reading this book RIGHT NOW?

Absolutely dazzling! Full of love, power, and betrayal, Malice is as compelling as a spell, as captivating as an enchantment, and as fascinating and delicious as a fairy-tale curse. I loved it!

A spellbinding debut ... for all the queer girls and women who've been told to keep their gifts hidden and for those yearning to defy gravity.

Viciously satisfying. Malice takes Sleeping Beauty and turns everything on its head, cutting right to the core of this bejewelled world. Heather Walter has given us a villain to adore.

We are [...] surrounded by Williams's playful prose, with wordplay and portmanteaus aplenty [...] An inventive, comic novel, which has already drawn comparisons to Wodehouse and Waugh

Eley Williams's fiction is all about love, but its style is shy and abashed ... The whydunit strand is nifty: there's a twist I didn't expect. But the pleasures are linguistic. There are numerous digressions into words and their afterlives ... It's fascinating ... The emotional weft is exquisite. Echoes in language, both verbal and body, pass between eras with subtlety. The Liar's Dictionary is a dextrous handling of two mysteries at once: a malfeasance, which ends up solved, and the problem of love, which does not.

Sparkling first lines are things to cherish, and Eley Williams's opener to The Liar's Dictionary is a doozy. "David spoke to me for three minutes without realising I had a whole egg in my mouth". If, like me, that's a sentence that immediately makes you smile, then this is a book for you ... The Liar's Dictionary is a wondrous, multi-faceted novel. It's an absurdist flight of fancy full of funny lines and set pieces that put me in the mind of the films of Wes Anderson. It's also a joyous celebration of language and a touching human story about how people try to leave their mark on the world. Highly recommended.

The Liar's Dictionary takes evident delight in his coinages, and is littered with similar misalignments that don't fully fit the lying label [...] Characteristically nimble and rippling and alert to the uneasiness of "tying things up", despite being a book about books that order and categorise, The Liar's Dictionary lets its characters stray off the page at its close.

Her first novel offers further adventures in love and language, taking us deep into the world of lexicography ...Invented words are her way into those ever-fertile debates about how far language should be fixed or constantly remade ... In Williams's writing, the simple words and actions don't invalidate or override the hesitant, sidelong or circumlocutory ones: she is keen to make room for them all ... A warm, intricate novel shaped by a powerfully humane and uncoercive intelligence. It's a book of big ideas in a minor key. Sceptical about grand visions, it is also resistant to conclusion.

Eley Williams burst on to the literary scene in 2017 with her beguilingly imaginative collection of tales ... The Liar's Dictionary became one of the hotly anticipated debuts of 2020 ... It does not disappoint ... Really compelling ... Where Williams really excels - other than in the assiduity with which she tests the power of language to articulate the world - is, on the one hand, in affectingly light-touched descriptions of tenderness and love, and, on the other, in the surreal rendering of comic scenes ... A comic tour de force ... Choreographed to perfection ... The intensity of Eley Williams's imaginative vision - her capacity to tease the extraordinary from the ordinary - and her characteristically playful...always warm prose single her out as one of the most promising young British writers to emerge in the last few years.

An unimboxable cheeriosity

A remarkable novel ... Original and often very funny, The Liar's Dictionary is an offbeat exploration of both the delights of language and its limitations.

"A dictionary as an unreliable narrator" is a device used here in clever ways ... Those familiar with Williams's writing won't be surprised to find that her characters are also in love with words ... Williams's sentences rarely stall; they move between conventional and innovative forms, and her novel is no less original for that.

The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams (William Heinemann), which continues the lexicographical playfulness of her short stories, is a singularly charming jeu d'esprit about two people a century apart doing the difficult, essential work of defining words and defining themselves.

[I]t's a sunny, breezy smile of a book [...] it's a lovely, lovely book which we read in a single sitting. If you liked The Surgeon of Crowthorne or even Leonard and Hungry Paul we think you'll get an almighty kick out of this. Max Porter described Williams' debut Attrib, thus "I love it in a way I usually reserve for people" - we feel the same way about The Liar's Dictionary.

With its historical and contemporary settings, rounded relatable characters, and a plot to which one could even give spoilers, [...] The Liar's Dictionary is recognisably a Proper Novel. [...] The tricky courtship of word and world, and how a book might hold a world, is essentially the theme of all dictionary fiction. The Liar's Dictionary, an invaluable additionto that odd canon, ends up - I think - being all about one word, one that James Joyce (an encyclopaediac himself) called "the word known to all," the word love.

[A] wry, charming debut novel ... Ruminating on and revelling in the English language, this warm-hearted novel is a thoughtful, funny delight.

If searching for the answers to human uncertainties by crystallising them in definitions is 'like trapping butterflies under glass,' the beating of Williams' words against the pages is anything but: these words are playfully free.

Filled with humour and sparkling moments of insight, it's a book that celebrates the delights of language whilst the characters struggle to find their place in the world that exists beyond word definitions.

Any reader accompanying Rachel Joyce on this exhilarating expedition into the far reaches of the imagination is destined to be rewarded with the richest pleasure ... An enthralling, amazing expedition into the mysteries of the human heart.

So fast-paced and fun it’ll make you remember why you loved reading in the first place. Miss Benson’s Beetle has everything: adventure, mystery, and the greatest, most unlikely friendship, all rendered in some of the most beautiful, enchanting prose you’ll ever read. It’s full of humour, pathos, and insight, extolling the virtues of love, acceptance, and hard-won self-discovery – all that gleams about the human spirit. It’ll capture you right at the beginning and hold you tight the whole way through. This book is a pure and serious joy.

Wonderful characters that I will not forget in a hurry ... This book will take you on the adventure of a lifetime. I loved every second!

As ever, Rachel Joyce made me laugh out loud, then weep for the battered majesty of ordinary human beings.
Two unlikely heroines, their strange love, a pitiful villain and a life-affirming search for miraculous beauty…
all combine in a wild, hopeful picaresque journey into the soul.

Editor's Choice: A gorgeous story about friendship, adventure and the importance of taking risks.

AUDIO BOOK OF THE WEEK

A hilarious jaunt into the wilderness of women's friendship and the triumph of outrageous dreams.

Miss Benson's Beetle is an absolute joy - a wild, funny, and breathlessly exciting adventure story that's also a moving and beautifully drawn portrait of an improbable female friendship in a world still emerging from the trauma of two world wars. Joyce writes about Margery and Enid with such tenderness and compassion, such wisdom and humour, weaving an irresistible tale of frailty and strength, curiosity and courage, grief and hope.

Margery Benson dreams of finding a mythical gold beetle in New Caledonia. So she and her irritating assistant set sail from London in 1950-and become kindred spirits during an adventure both zany and harrowing. It's a wildly original, life-affirming tale.

A book that will have you howling with laughter the one moment and wiping away tears the next - my favourite read in years. Don't miss it.