A classily written crime novel that is also an atmospheric evocation of a bygone era.

Darkly beautiful... The Kept is a rare blend of brutality and empathy, emotion and close observation. I thought at times of Cormac McCarthy's work and of the novels of David Vann. At other times it brought to mind Stef Penney's The Tenderness Of Wolves and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. But there's something wonderfully distinctive about The Kept... A literary page-turner of the highest calibre by a writer of serious talent.

Mysterious and compelling... James Scott has written a riveting and memorable debut novel.

With its vivid sense of time and place, lyrical writing, and complex questions of what constitutes a family, The Kept is an outstanding debut by a bright new voice in fiction.

Winter and discontent... Scott is the master of mood... Haunting'

Dark and mysterious… A novel whose daring is found in its bleakness… The plot unfolds with a weighty languor reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy… Sparse, elegant… haunting.

Reads with the stark clarity of a Johnny Cash song

Feels like the shell of a Cormac McCarthy novel filled with the intricate yearning and familial strife of a Lorca play… A gripping combination I don’t think we’re likely to find anywhere else.

Dark and brutal… Never lets up until the climactic scene, in prose that’s brooding and intense right up until the final paragraph… So packed with incident and character, and so fluidly paced, that it’s brought vividly to life by Scott’s meticulous control

Scott is [a] master storyteller in this outstanding debut

A thrilling adventure and a literary triumph

A deeply moving, disconcerting novel… Scott manages something quite difficult here, balancing both terror and tenderness with apparent ease. By the end of The Kept, you’ll be convinced that he can do just about anything.

Atmospheric and memorable, suffused with dread and suspense right up to the last page.

Artisan-like control... As breathless as it is inevitable