[Weir] gets right inside the head of the Virgin Queen. The reader has a blissful sense of seeing history as it happens.

Politics, historical detail and unfulfilled love in Alison Weir's endlessly fascinating account of Elizabeth I's attempt reconcile her personal passions with public life . . . The sheer weight of Weir’s scholarship underpins the narrative, making it endlessly fascinating.

The captivating, tempestuous, often hilarious and ultimately poignant story of the extraordinary love affair between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley

With the vogue for Tudor history at its height, this is a brilliant novel that focuses on the volatile relationship with Elizabeth I and the charismatic Lord Dudley.

Based on in-depth knowledge of Elizabeth’s court, and the intrigues that swirled around it, the novel has the benefit of both verisimilitude and captivating story-telling.

Alison Weir brings all her knowledge of Elizabeth I to vivid life . . . The Marriage Game is a dramatic, complex and deeply poignant tale of intrigue, love and loss. Fantastic.

Boisterous, exuberant.

A compelling read.

Proof [Welsh] can write convincingly about experiences suitably removed from his own.

A darkly funny novel with well-drawn characters.

A compulsive read.

Never has filth been such fun – Welsh at his wicked best.

Welsh’s words fizz and burn with energy… It’s crude, hot, vulgar and irreverent, but not in a smut-for-smut’s sake way – this is intellectualized scatology, scatology made into high-art… Welsh’s grist is, and always has been, to show the ugly truth of exactly who we are, with breath-taking beauty. And in that, he remains peerless.

Readers should not let the incessant onslaught of obscenity distract them from…Welsh’s poignant and well-meaning message.

Irvine Welsh maintains a breakneck pace…engaging the reader completely.

Challenging, humorous and – tentatively – uplifting, it goes far beyond the usual explorations of what it is to be a mother

Albert has made a novel that approaches depression and maternal anxiety with candid honesty, transforming writing on motherhood forever

A hilarious, honest, and eye-opening book, this is a must have for any new mum or mum-to-be

Funny and heartfelt

Ms. Moran['s] ... funny and cheerfully dirty coming-of-age novel has a hard kernel of class awareness ... sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways.

there’s so much real feeling too. Johanna’s vulnerability and bravado, as she moves out of her world and falls in love is beautifully done’ or ‘ and running through it all, with a visceral power that most writers should envy, is the shame and grinding anxiety of being poor

Moran also writes brilliantly about music, and especially about what music can do. She carries Johanna through this novel with incredible verve, extravagant candour, and a lot of heart. Johanna is … a wonderful heroine. A heroine who cares, who bravely sallies forth and makes things happen, who gives of herself, who is refreshingly unashamed. She’s so confident, it’s glorious

an entertaining read, with Moran in fine voice – hilarious, wild, imaginative and highly valuable…Moran is in danger of becoming to female masturbation what Keats was to Nightingales…

rude, big-hearted, wise-cracking novel…so filthy she’ll make you blush

This is going to be a bestseller…A sharp, hilarious and controversial read

Ali Smith is a master of language. Vigorous, vivid writing that is Ali Smith incarnate

Ingeniously conceived, gloriously inventive

Dizzyingly ambitious . . . endlessly artful, creating work that feels infinite in its scope and intimate at the same time. [A] swirling panoramic

Brilliant . . . the sort of death-defying storytelling acrobatics that don't seem entirely possible

Having read this now twice, in both directions so to speak, I've decided - and I do not write this flippantly - that Ali Smith is a genius

Approaches the world as only a novel can. The book moves not so much in a straight line as in a twisting helix pattern . . . delivers the heat of life and the return of beauty in the face of loss

A unique conversation between past and present

Wildly inventive . . . lyrical, fresh