Elizabeth Loupas just gets better and better. Renaissance Florence springs to life in all its gorgeous, treacherous glory when a brave street urchin finds herself neck deep in Medici blood-lust. A dash of magic, a maze of murder, a heroine to root for, and a villain who needs to die - this is historical fiction at its most compelling.

Elizabeth Loupas works her own particular alchemy on her readers as she brings the heady elements of the Medici court to life - fascinating!

The ingenious little touches don’t stop at the historical detail or the character formation though; Elizabeth has writing tricks to share too. At one point Ruan is vehemently accused of his past, permitting the narrative to cleverly conversationally-inform us of his background without that awkward appearance of telling him what he already knows. Smooth! Ladies, if you're looking for that elusive holiday read that punches above its apparent weight here it is: satisfying with romance in proportion and deaths by poisoning and garrotting thrown in… What more could we ask?

Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light

Both a gripping mystery and a meditation on the relationship between art and life

It's reassuring to know that you can still go into a bookshop and buy something about dreams and souls without feeling embarrassed

A diverting romance

Playful yet intelligent, it's an impressive exercise in literary impersonation

A beguiling mix of singsong and sweet poetry.This book begs to be read aloud

A repertory of wonders. Told with his usual warmth and wit

Beautiful, memorably resonant

The most entertaining and original novel this year... Stylish

Highly original... It would be hard to top the wonderful whimsical invention of Flawed Angel

The tender exploration of themes of family, love and loss contribute to the impact of this story that, like Life After Life, is beautifully written, stunningly constructed, and will linger long in the memory. Superb.

As ever, Kate Atkinson is adept at ferreting her way into the minds of unlovely characters until you feel you know and understand them...While this is a tale of a life spared, the tone is one of elegy.

Magnificent...In A God in Ruins, she's written not only a companion to her earlier book, but a novel that takes its place in the line of powerful works about young men and war, stretching from Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage to Kevin Powers' The Yellow Birds and Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

Kate Atkinson just keeps getting better…A God in Ruins is a stunner…I laughed out loud…this bleak and beautiful book…Atkinson’s genre-bending novels have garnered critical praise, but nothing on the order of a Rushdie, or even an Ian McEwan. A God in Ruins should change that.

A sprawling, unapologetically ambitious saga that tells the story of postwar Britain through the microcosm of a single family, and you remember what a big, old-school novel can do...especially impressive.

Atkinson follows up her Costa Award-winning Life After Life with a dazzling novel about the genteel Todd family… The narrative is less slippery, but no less compelling.

A riveting exploration of the complexities of family life

Kate Atkinson's understanding of how we work is off the scale

If you were blown away by Life After Life, you'll be dazzled by this companion piece...an extraordinary tour de force.

An engrossing read by any standards. One that kept me up late at night to discover what would happen next.

A masterpiece of storytelling and a master class in how fiction works. It's also incredibly, surprisingly funny. It's my current death row book. If I was only allowed one last read,this would be it.

One of Britain’s most accomplished novelists.

An ingenious and atmospheric novel.

Lawrence Osborne is an experienced, competent author with an impressive knowledge of Asia… Comparisons with Graham Greene seem to be generously offered by other reviewers and I’ve already alluded to Conrad and a Patricia Highsmith yet my impression is that Mr. Osborne has a style all of his own.

Enright has delivered a fine work about how you can’t escape the past.

[A] wonderful book.

The novel of [Enright’s] already storied career.

With language so vibrant it practically has a pulse, Enright makes an exquisitely drawn case for the possibility of growth, love and transformation at any age.

No-one quite matches Enright for her quality of writing, her deftness of insight.

This is a captivating, spellbinding evocation of how your nearest and not-so-dearest can wreak emotional havoc.

Glitteringly good.

The Green Road has been receiving glowing reviews and it's easy to see why. The story, set over four decades, gives us deep insights into the five main characters, all of whom tell us something about ourselves as Irish people, and all of whom you are sorry to leave as a reader.

Enright is the most extraordinary writer – her style is simple and honest, no gimmicks, just straight to the heart.

A powerful evocation of leaving and returning home.

Masterful.

Watch out for it come Man Booker time.

Enright captures beautifully the tensions of…forced festive gatherings, the sibling rivalry and the maternal melancholy of a woman who does not understand her feelings towards her own children.

Richly and sensuously realised, it’s vivid with the particularity of places and people and bruisingly intelligent.

Enright shows real insight and perception when it comes to family relationships. It’s a well-structured and well-paced narrative.

Written with raw and brutal honesty, this is one to savour.

Enright’s writing is sharp and lucid and full of beautiful phrases and descriptions.

I love Enright’s style and the spidering out of the siblings’ lives.

There is beauty and darkness, hypocrisy and humility; it wouldn’t be an Irish novel without them.

The Green Road, about one Irish family, confronts all that is essential: love, death, mothers and our own flawed selves. It is written with a kind of tenderness, beauty and insight that transmogrifies humdrum experience into the epiphanic and back again.

Blisteringly funny and keenly perceptive.

Deeply affecting, crackling with wit, and consistently magnificent.

A globe-trotting, kaleidoscopic portrait of Irish siblings and their difficult mother.

A magnificent novel about family and belonging told in stark yet sparkling prose.

A fierce, funny, loosely woven family saga.

[A] darkly glinting novel of family life.

A bravura example of shifting voices and perspectives, all of which benefit from Enright’s splendid prose and careful restraint.

Enright dissects [her character’s] foibles with warmth, wit and a bracing lack of sentimentality.

A book you don’t put down until it is finished, dragging you right into the heart of another Irish family as only Anne Enright can.

A family saga, beginning with intense and beautifully detailed character studies.

I... enjoyed The Green Road for the dialogue, the clever narrative structure, and the gnarled, contemporary sense of family values.

I could not put it down. Chapter two is a masterpiece.

Stylish prose that charts the fortunes and misfortunes of this family over a period of 25 years.

In this brilliant, captivating novel, the poised, impossible and always disappointed matriarch Rosaleen Madigan makes life difficult for her children at a Christmas gathering.

Few Novelists pick apart domestic relationships with the poetry and precision of Anne Enright.

Sharp yet oh so subtle storytelling […] this is an author at the height of her formidable powers.

An exquisitely written portrait of a family, and a country, on the cusp of enormous change.

Exquisitely written and hugely enjoyable.

A brilliant approach to the sadness of a disconnected family, who are like satellites out of sync.

Enright’s virtuosic tale of an Irish family- the Madigans- across continents and decades withholds closure but doesn’t skimp on pleasure

A compelling novel, full of astute observations, beautifully written, sometimes stark and other times aching with longing

The sweep of the book and Anne Enright's way fo pulling this global migratuon story together with such energy and detail puts her in somewhere beside Toni Morrison

Heart-wrenching novel… The surgical precision of Enright’s writing makes you feel that she can, in Wordsworth’s words, “see into the life of things”. There is a singing simplicity to it that tugs at your heart…A masterly work.

Beautifully observed. Enright is a great writer.

Bold and brilliant.

Incredible… I’m totally captivated.

An evocative story about family ties and belonging.

A brilliant read.

A story of fracture and family, selfishness and compassion.

Sharply funny portrait of an Irish family meeting for a final Christmas.

Within pages I was wrapped in the warmth of Enright’s prose… This is a beautiful book… Enright is unquestionably a fantastic writer who, for me with this novel, conjured up the world of a family with all its highs and lows that felt like they might be having this reunion down the end of your road… Enright does two of my favourite things in fiction. She makes the ordinary, and everything we take for granted, seem extra ordinary. She also gives voices to those who have not been able to share their tales… The writing is stunning.

An evocative story about family ties and belonging. Anne Enright is deservedly a well-respected writer.

Enright's novels are fantastically well-crafted, eloquent and funny… Each character is beautifully realized… She finds unexpected adjectives, brilliantly exact description, the spot-on emotion. Her writing is lyrical but always unsentimental. There is pleasure in reading every paragraph, and an enormous wisdom throughout the pages.

Truly wonderful… The dialogue is particularly brilliant… It completely envelops you in the story and will leave you wanting more.

Wonderful… The dialogue is particularly brilliant, capturing all the barbed snappiness of dinner with siblings.

I fell headfirst into the beautifully written prose of this novel, so authentic and charming in its telling of one Irish family over more than two decades. Each vibrant character gets a turn in almost short stories of their own that feel almost like entities in their own right. I adored it.

A resonant, masterly work.

[An] exceptional novel.

This is a flawless book, it’s utterly flawless… It has just touched so many other readers. This book is heartbreaking… A beautiful examination of unhappy families… The power of Anne’s writing is you all see a reflection of your own family…it’s tender and it’s beautiful and deserves to be widely read.

Enright is undoubtedly one of our most prominent novelists