Jane's struggle to cope is a journey of self-discovery and independence...a wistful and haunting period piece

This was the first grown-up book I read apart from the dirty bits in The Carpet Baggers and every 14-year-old should be made to read it. It tackles the lot; loneliness, race, sex and growing up. I never read books twice but I feel like tracking this one down again.

Unflinching in its boarding-house detail, and strikingly modern in its fury at the "social conditioning" that made its heroine an outcast; it shocked and sold.

Written in pre-Pill days when motherhood really was a fate worse than death, the shame and tension in Reid Bank's ground-breaking novel may seem incomprehensible to today's sexually active youngsters

Caryl Philips novel tells [Walker and William's story] with sensitivity and eloquence. He is a consummate storyteller...

Easily one of the best poetry collections in the past decade

Shifts in focus and perspective allow for a fresh and engaging exploration of time-honoured themes. This descriptive and imaginative daring makes In the Flesh a persuasive debut

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

There is sometimes awesomeness behind the covers. And Fallen is one such book. And the cover is deliciously gothic . . . The book has an air of mystery to it, and there are twists and turns everywhere. It certainly keeps you guessing . . . Move over, Hush, Hush, for there is more originality and awesomeness here

Full of unexpected twists, with romance, intrigue and even scares

An exciting climax and an intriguing ending

I have one word for you: WOW! This book is absolutely amazing! I cannot wait to read the next book in this series, Torment. Seriously, Fallen is unbelievably good, and I may just have to read it again soon. You need this book!

Lauren Kate really knows how to keep a reader engaged. A breathtaking read. 5/5

As lyrically succulent as Chocolat and Blackberry Wine, this book probes darker corners of loss, enmity and betrayal

Hugely enjoyable

Vastly enjoyable, utterly gripping

A dark, gripping tale of how smell leads to tragedy and murder. Harris's vividly sensual account of a nine-year-olds loves, loyalties and misunderstandings is a powerful and haunting story of childhood betrayal

Five Quarters of the Orange completes a hat-trick of food-titled tales with a riveting story about a young girl brought up in occupied France who's now an old woman harbouring a terrible secret. Harris is light-years ahead of her contemporaries. She teases you with snippets of a bigger story, gently pulling you in with her vivid descriptions of rural France until you can actually smell the oranges. Read it

Beautifully told, it's a haunting and tantalizing tale that stays with you long after turning the last page

The luscious prose, abounding in culinary metaphors and similes, which made Chocolat so readable, is once more in evidence ... a satisfying page-turner

This shape-shifting drama switches easily between Occupied France and the present day. Recipes for luscious meals and homebrewed liqueurs interlace a storyline that spoons suspense and black humour into the blender in equal measure

Harris is an acute observer of the lush French countryside, and her descriptions of it are a delight ... A luscious feast of a book

Joanne Harris's rather brilliant Five Quarters of the Orange is a fascinating page-turner with a compelling climax ... This is an absolutely remarkable book that deserves to be read over and over again

Harris' love affair with food and France continues. Savour it

Harris evocatively balances the young Framboise's perspectives on life against grown-up truths with compelling, zestful flair

The dreamy and almost fair-tale narrative remains undisturbed by the spectre of the Occupation, as Harris avoids moral or historical themes, to ponder on the internal and social turmoil of the protagonists ... Harris seduces her readers with culinary delights, through suggestive textures and smells which indulge the senses

Harris has a gift for injecting magic into the everyday ... She is an old-fashioned writer in the finest sense, believing in a strong narrative, fully rounded characters, a complex plot, even a moral

Gripping ... Harris is on assured form