Salley Vickers sees with a clear eye and writes with a light hand. She's a presence worth cherishing

The Gardener is a novel of regrowth & regeneration, of sisters overcoming a toxic parental legacy & of the healing power of seed packets

Steeped in a sense of the redemptive power of place, Sally Vickers's 11th novel is a paean to green-fingered regeneration that is both rigorous and charming

Vickers writes of relationships with undaunted clarity

No one can dig down into the shrouded recesses of the human heart quite as forensically as Vickers

An escapist, involving novel about relationships and two siblings coming to terms with their childhood and each other

With its sensitively drawn characters, this is a quiet and intelligent hymn to the restorative power of nature. Delightful

The bestselling author of Miss Garnet's Angel and The Librarian, Vickers has been a Jungian therapist and her novels have always featured personal growth and transformation. This is no exception, as Hassie weathers bereavement, a
break-up and midlife despair, but finds a sense of new beginnings and a feeling for the power of place. It also has some sharp social observation about the reality of moving out to the sticks in post-Brexit Britain

Salley Vickers is skilled at transforming the everyday into something haunting. This tale of a woman's search for inner peace is no exception

Profoundly moving, healing and wise, this is the perfect antidote to our urban anxiety

An examination of humanity and of language - man's most distinctive feature - and how it serves us in defining ourselves and the world around us.

A brilliant book. I loved meeting all these characters, who jumped off the page and stayed in my head. Aingeala Flannery is a real talent

The Amusements kept me up half the night. Aingeala Flannery is a brilliant writer. Her sentences crackle with life, energy and devastating insight into the human condition. She writes with a rare combination of compassion and black humour. Her characters live on in my mind like people I have always known

A fantastic debut novel . . . it paints a vivid picture of this seaside town, we were gripped

[Flannery] skilfully observes life in a small town and roads that are dreamed of but not taken. Characters that have a great sense of longing & yearning to leave this town behind, and yet somehow always get pulled back. A great read!

As addictive as slot machines and as exhilarating as waltzers. A great sense of place and compelling characters

[Carries] notes of Donal Ryan and Roddy Doyle for me . . . A nostalgic masterpiece, loaded with possibility and weighed down with reality, guaranteed to be this summer's must-read

Sharp as a vogue tomato slicer, it's seaside Ireland minus the dreary caravan mentality or sentimentality

If you buy just one novel next month make sure to buy Aingeala Flannery's debut. Funny, sad and most of all beautifully written

A compelling and satisfying read

Brilliant

I loved it - so good

Glorious

Beautiful

Like [William] Trevor, a wry wit permeates Flannery's storytelling

Flannery's depiction of the sounds, smells and seediness of the typical seaside resort is sharp and vivid

Charming and empathetic . . . Flannery's immense skill lies in her ability to inhabit such a wide range of characters, stepping into their shoes and capturing the nuance of each voice, each set of hopes and dreams and private, devastating heartaches

THIS BOOK is EVERYTHING. The characters are painfully, beautifully real, the writing is IMPECCABLE. Brutally honest about what we want for ourselves versus what we actually get, I LOVED it

Blackly funny

Impossibly compelling

My book of the year . . . I loved every page

Flannery excels at working that counterpoint of dark and light, comedy in the face of tragedy . . . A brilliant debut

Quietly beautiful . . . Flannery's characters are very well drawn, as is her understanding of small-town mores and idle gossip. It's a book that leaves and impression long after the final page

An amazing story

A touching contemporary fiction following one woman's journey back into the world

A timely and poignant book about trauma, loneliness, and stepping outside of our comfort zones - literally

An optimistic, feel-good novel

[A] satisfying debut. The endearing characters offer a sensitive portrayal of what it means to live with mental health issues... with heart to spare

Feverishly exhilarating stuff

With her unparalleled gift for sumptuous, sublime prose, Groff paints an engrossing portrait of a woman who, despite living in a world bound by constraints, experiences a life rich with passion and creativity. Surrounded by a supportive sisterhood, Marie uses strength and ingenuity to subvert the oppression of the patriarchy

Utterly absorbing

Splendid with rich description and period vocabulary, this courageous and spin-tingling novel shows an incredible range for Groff (FLORIDA, 2018), and will envelop readers fully in Marie's world, interior and exterior, all senses lit up. It is both a complete departure and an easy-to-envision tale of faith, power, and temptation.

In this bildungsroman about the real-life 12th-century poet Marie de France, a teenage Marie is exiled to a blighted Benedictine nunnery, where she finds strength and power as a prioress

Powerful, sapphic historical novel . . . Richly realized with historical details that don't overwhelm

Readers will recognize her stunning prose and grand, mythic perspective. . . . in a tale that feels both ancient and urgent, as holy as it is deeply human

The pages are almost completely devoid of men - seen, but not heard - with Groff using poetic, melodic and yet fierce writing to breathe volume into themes of power, ambition and success from the perspective of women

[A] propulsive, enchanting, and emotionally charged read

A clever spin on the story of Marie de France

I loved this accomplished piece of storytelling. So much so, I added it to my Booker wish list at the last minute, a wish not fulfilled, of course

Matrix is a rich, beautifully written novel about ambition and desire, and also witchy separatist medieval nuns

Mesmerizing and inspiring

Medieval life can seem far from our modern grasp, but Groff vividly describes the daily workings of the convent, from prayers to practical chores. She has done her research and it shows in the rich details she provides of working the fields, preparing meals, governing novices . . . magical, a beautiful evocation of what women can achieve and what they can mean to each other

[A] feminist foray into a medieval nunnery that is stunning in its labyrinthine artistry and sensual tracing of life as lived during the era of the poet Marie de France and the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine

Must-read

A[n] artful writer, Groff has no need for fantastic artifice to construct a world without men. She . . . gives us an extraordinary protagonist . . . Anyone who has read Groff's previous novels and stories knows that this author's greatest virtue is her economy of prose. A disciplined writer . . . If "Eleanor's best currency is story," that goes double for Groff . . . Groff's "Matrix" simultaneously transports us to a backward world that once was and the grim future that seems inevitable. And all this through the eyes of a group of extraordinary women who decline to live lives of quiet desperation

[A] transcendently beautiful novel with sensuality, religious ecstasy, gender and power explorations, and a fair bit of tasteful gore. It's surprisingly delicious to read fiction about a historical figure we know so little about

I'm on page 17 and now nothing else matters . . . Once you have this book in your hands I feel certain you too will be consumed

[D]reamy prose . . . At its heart, the book's message is simple: joy can exist in darkness

Richly imaginative

[A] relentless exhibition of Groff's freakish talent . . . an unforgettable book . . . ecstatic, refulgent, God-struck, heretical

[A] creative, intelligent work that will last

The real Marie de France may continue to elude historians but the speculative fiction in Matrix combine to produce an unfailingly absorbing novel

An uplifting novel in its own unique way, and up there with Groff's best work

Matrix forms an intensely focused character study, but also succeeds as a probing exploration of female power

A beautiful and beguiling novel that transports the listener utterly and completely to another world

Against a convincingly filthy and precarious medieval backdrop, Marie is a figure of dazzling complexity