The other side of Gone with the Wind - and just as unputdownable

A big, warm girlfriend of a book

Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird has changed lives. It's direct descendent The Help has the same potential . . . an astonishing feat of accomplishment

Outstanding, immensely funny, very compelling, brilliant

Immensely readable

Daring, vitally important and very courageous, I loved and admired The Help. Fantastic

A laugh-out-loud, vociferously angry must-read

Touching, disgraceful, funny. Highly recommended

Utterly brilliant

Remarkable, shocking, brave, brilliant

Wonderfully engaging dialogue

A compelling, great first novel, with soaring highs, poignant side stories and laugh-out-loud anecdotes. You'll be sorry to finish it

A winning story of courage and truth

A brisk, involving read

An exciting and atmospheric story

A wise, poignant novel. You'll catch yourself cheering out loud

Lush, original and poignant. A wondrous novel set in the deep south told through the authentic voices of Aibileen, Minnie and Skeeter, three unforgettable women whose lives and points of view intersect vividly against a landscape of hopeful change in America. You will be swept away as they work, play and love during a time when possibilities for women were few but their dreams of the future were limitless. A glorious read.

A prismatic portrait of British life and millennial angst emerges, with echoes of Zadie Smith and Sally Rooney, but the presiding spirit of the novel is Virginia Woolf... Scintillating prose and sly social observation make this novel a tart pleasure.

A furious encapsulation of Generation Rent.

From the first paragraph, I was hooked. Tension drips through every scene and Hamya depicts London so well.

The Paper Palace paints a vivid picture of family secrets and tensions, against the backdrop of a sun-soaked summer

Miranda Cowley Heller's debut The Paper Palace . . . finds Elle on the point of leaving her near-perfect family life for the visceral thrill of Jonas, green-eyed soul mate of her youthful vacations. With its atmospheric setting and rich backstory, the denouement is set to be an August talking point and a mini-series is already slated.'

A stirring and sensual story

This accomplished family saga is gripping and poetic, capturing the complexity of the human heart

A richly detailed family saga that nods to tales by Johns Cheever and Updike . . . this immersive novel makes for a lushly satisfying read

The novel unfolds like a set of dark short stories, with a different character narrating or guiding each one. But there's a twist: Luckenbooth is not just haunted by the realities of time and history, but also by the strong musk of the gothic imagination ... Thickly worked and carefully assembled, the novel functions as a claustrophobic chiller and as a testament to lives led beyond the margins and in the shadows.

Luckenbooth ... is littered with lines like this. The sort of lines that demand to be read and reread: splendid in isolation, electric in combination. Fagan writes with drama. She can pick out the fine detail, in neat brush strokes, no doubt, but it is in drawing her arm back and attacking a story with great, sweeping lyricism that she propels Luckenbooth forward, dragging the reader through the 20th century, as experienced by a compelling cast of characters.

Slips and slides through layers of history, tears in the fabric of time and a series of strange shape shifting characters - it's a wonderful work that is a trip into a spectral interzone but also staged in a warped reality - great writing and a major talent.

A novel for readers with sophisticated tastes.

Uniquely gripping visions of the hidden social, economic and spiritual forces at play in 20th-century Edinburgh.

Dazzlingly ambitious.

As sexy and horrifying as any fairy story, it is a book concerned, not only with a structure, but with structures: alphabetical, architectural, societal, what they are built upon and how they crumble

Prize-winning author Jenni Fagan does not disappoint with her latest novel, Luckenbooth, which is easily her most compelling yet. In her usual poetic style, Fagan tells of a nine-storey Edinburgh tenement just off the Royal Mile that is creaking with secrets. Throughout this haunting novel, characters' secrets and memories live on in the howling gales of the spirit world, desperate to re-enter their lives. The narrative takes us through eight decades - from 1910 to 1999 - working its way up all nine floors of the building in hopscotch fashion, allowing for an intriguing interpretation of 20th-century life in the capital. Prepare to be transported into a Fagan's weird and wonderful imagination. It is a whirlwind read and one that I could not put down until the final page had turned.

As sexy and horrifying as any fairy story, it is a book concerned, not only with a structure, but with structures: alphabetical, architectural, societal, what they are built upon and how they crumble.

An Edinburgh tenement building is haunted by tall stories and unnerving strangers, from William Burroughs to the devil's daughter, in this weird and wonderful gothic confection.

Her "world building" is highly effective, and each character fully inhabits their decade. Fagan's writing is anchored in societal issues, the wrongs done and the ways individuals have challenged those wrongs and asserted their individuality and sexuality in ways that might make them seem misfits, outcasts. Fagan certainly pulls no punches and is determined that these passionate, authentic stories should not be confined to the periphery.

A deliciously weird gothic horror

An ambitious and ravishing novel that will haunt me long after

Ambitious in scope… The physical atmosphere of the Bass Rock and its surroundings are wonderfully evoked… But it is the relationships between women in this tessellated work that triumph... I wholly recommend this book.

Wyld is often praised for her lyrical prose, and The Bass Rock is most certainly a continuation of this form.

[A] dark, beautiful and funny gothic family saga for the #MeToo generation… an atmospheric book that transports you within a few sentences… The tension is always building as the story takes on an otherworldly dimension.

The Bass Rock is complex, rich, challenging… Like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, The Bass Rock offers a universal history of subjugation and oppression… Violence…runs through the book like veins in marble… Vivid and gripping.

A gripping look at three women's stories across four centuries.

Evie Wyld’s passion for horror shines through in the setting of this novel.

Utterly enthralling… [Wyld’s] eye for human foibles and idiosyncrasy is incredibly sharp, and this novel once again exhibits her bravura way with narrative structure… Dark, disturbing and very sophisticated.

[An] intensely absorbing gothic novel, which weaves together the fate of three women across three centuries. That it can also comfortably accommodate episodes of off-the-wall, Fleabag-esque hilarity confirms the acclaimed Wyld's brilliance.

Wyld's thought-provoking plots separate this book from many others on the shelves... Wyld's three narratives are artfully crafted to suit the shifting time frames.

Wyld's ingeniously linked narratives weave a haunting tale of fear and defiance.

A novel of such subtlety and hope