Beautifully rendered, the shifting inner lives of the characters are subtle and believable and the fresh, sometimes subversive observation is a delight

Miranda France writes skillfully and with a wry touch... That Summer at Hill Farm is a pleasure to read, tempting the reader to wolf it down in one

An arresting writer...France's account of village life conveys a genuine, smoldering anger... Adultery, arson and assault - all come bursting out

Pyromaniac labourers, feuding pensioners and adulterous housewives blot the landscape in Miranda France's entertaining novel, a sort of homage to Cold Comfort Farm, with a dash of Jilly Cooper and The Archers thrown in

With an incredible confidence for a debut novelist, Miranda France changes tack from rural romance to murder mystery...[she] writes with such assurance and humour that she carries us along...through the subtle underpinning of her characterization

Reads like The Archers written by Tolstoy...This debut novel from a well-known travel scribe twists coming-of-age drama with Karenina-esque sensual discovery, and perfectly captures the more Gothic aspects of country life

Miranda France has minutely drawn a farming community, and a broken woman, with excellent skill. She is superb at plucking comedy from tragedy, as well as exhibiting a wry authorial narrative that must owe more than a little to Jane Austen. She manages to square this lightness of tone with a subtle tale full of secrecy, betrayal and fear that keeps you clinging on right to the very end

A convincing depiction of the way in which ordinary lives can be nudged towards quiet tragedy

France writes superbly about the reality of living in the countryside - and the pitch-black ending chills the blood.

It's impossible to avoid comparisons with Stella Gibbons...But Miranda France's debut novel is set in modern-day Sussex and she has drawn on her farming roots to a paint a picture of bucolic pastures.

Immensely clever unearthing of rural life and love

A clear-eyed, wise and subtle debut novel from a novelist to watch. Miranda France´s depiction of a vanishing rural Britain is packed with characters and events that ring coruscatingly true.

There is so much to admire in this novel: authorial eloquence, sly wit and the multi-faceted evocation of a rural community.

Mindblowing...obsessed with the past but gleaming with radical innovation, it's urgent and new and terrifying and beautiful and pretty much the best thing that's happened in fiction for ages

Binet has created something fresh and original and at times funny (no easy task given the subject matter) making a historical tale which captures the imagination and is also an important read

Utterly compelling and ruthlessly fascinating

A thrilling story that also happens to be true, by a gifted young author... Binet manages it all with beautiful lucidity and...discreet storytelling mastery

Fresh, honest and exciting

Historial fiction for grown-ups

A gripping thriller and a moving testament to the heroes of the Czechoslovakian resistance. Their mission resets the path of history. Binet’s resets the path of the historical novel. He has a bright, bright future.

Brilliant..

Thrilling.

An engrossing literary experiment that still contains enough hard facts to function as a terrific yarn.

Thrilling and engaging...Binet brilliantly builds the tension in the lead up to the assassination attempt, likewise the nerve-shredding aftermath of the incident.... Being so experimental yet so compelling as a writer is a real high-wire act, one only precious few authors have managed. Binet does it dazzlingly here, and I'm excited about what he's going to write next

Mesmeric stuff; history brought to chilling, potent life

A literary tour de force

Binet’s debut is a masterpiece of historical fiction… gripping read

A nail-biting novel, a thorough work of history and, most successfully of all, an exercise in form: a story about the writing of a true story

Compelling

Binet's approach may be new, but his story-telling instincts are nicely old fashioned. Translator Sam Wood does justice to the lucid prose

Is it a novel about the Nazis? Or is it a memoir about a historian trying to write about the Nazis? Somehow, it’s both – and it’s brilliant

A triumph

A must-read for people who have a real interest in the Third Reich … improbably entertaining and electrifyingly modern, a moving work

With its slightly skewed perspective and the relative freshness of its approach, HHhH compels us once again to consider that this, surely, was humanity's lowest point: a war waged, not against those who thwarted Germany's territorial ambitions, but against all that was good and decent in the human soul. In so doing, it confounds those who would decry post-modernism as wilfully obscure, relativistic and lacking in conviction

French newcomer Laurent Binet hits the ground running in the engrossing novel within a novel

A breezily charming novel, with a thrilling story that also happens to be true, by a gifted young author amusingly anguished over the question of how to tell it … In principle there's nothing not to like about Laurent Binet's acclaimed debut, and HHhH is certainly a thoroughly captivating performance

This book fully justifies the lavish praise adorning its author

Dazzling... It's stunningly brilliant

Stunning

Binet provides both context and impressive detail on the eventual assassination of Heydrich