'Pratchett lures classical themes and popular mythologies into the dark corners of his imagination, gets them drunk and makes them do things you wouldn't dream of doing with an Oxford don'

'Very clever madcap satire which has universal appeal. If you haven't tried him, this is a fun one to start with'

'The great Terry Pratchett, whose wit is metaphysical, who creates an energetic and lively secondary world, who has a multifarious genius for strong parody ... who deals with death with startling originality. Who writes amazing sentences'

'His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction'

'Like Jonathan Swift, Pratchett uses his other world to hold up a distorting mirror to our own, and like Swift he is a satirist of enormous talent ... incredibly funny ... compulsively readable'

'Classic English humour, with all the slapstick, twists and dry observations you could hope for'

Outstanding

Jean Plaidy conveys the texture of various patches of the past with such rich complexity

Seven Lies...has a way of enlarging the spirit and refreshing the mind far more comprehensively than many books with twice its 200 pages

[T]his seems to be an artful evocation of the effect of totalitarianism on the individual. But if this sounds drably psychological, I am doing the novel a disservice: it is short, intense, powerful and superbly crafted

Intricately plotted and structured, its prose both elegant and poised, Seven Lies could be read as a fable about the political and spiritual corruption endemic in a totalitarian state. It is, however, very much concerned with the human cost of deception and betrayal

A brilliant and darkly funny tale of politics and paranoia

A must-read for empty nesters ... this is Trollope at her most poignant