'Anne McCaffrey, one of the Queens of science fiction, knows exactly how to give her public what it wants'

A close inspection of how radically a life can be rescaled, and how quickly. With a protagonist like this, Barnes could have set her novel in a single room, and we'd keep reading.

Drawn with skill and filled with evocative period detail ... [Gin] plumbs the depths of her new world with heart and courage.

A real page-turner that’s also beautifully written and researched.

With courage and zest, Kim Barnes's novel takes an intimate look at ... the rarified and harshly beautiful world of eastern Saudi Arabia ... Within these lyrical pages is a story well worth investigating.

If you’re looking for a break from your usual chick lit then this novel from Pulitzer Prize shortlisted author Barnes has glamour, lust money, corruption and murder.

Written with pluck and humour

Beautifully descriptive, with a cliff-hanger finale

Aided by a translation (from Richard Dixon) that tucks into Eco’s rich period pastiche with relish, the story weaves a fictional master of mischief into actual events… Highly enjoyable in its cunning twists

Has latterly been dubbed the thinking person's Da Vinci Code. But Eco is at home in history in a way that Dan Brown is not... Eco has a sure grasp not only of historical fact but of a period's literature. He's a dab hand at intertextuality... His intent in exposing the moment that lies at the origin of modern anti-Semitism seems to be to show how fictions can have factual consequences. Contemporary spin-doctors take note. Lies, particularly if they follow the pattern of paranoid conspiracies and create an enemy, can have dire effects... Eco is a comic master and, in his 80th year, his irreverent intelligence, if not always his plotting or scabrous taste, remains bracing

There is a great deal of pleasure to be taken in the games Eco plays and in the serious thinking about history and stories that lies beneath them

An extremely readable narrative of betrayal, terrorism, murder… chilling

His biggest, most ambitious and most engaging novel to date

Psychological acuity, a wonderful linguistic precision and the ability to make beautiful accordance between form and content via thoughtful narrative experiment. Gods without Men is a step further along the road towards the full realisation of Kunzru's early promise. It makes undeniable the claim that he is one of our most important novelists . . . As large and cruel and real as life

Ambitiously eclectic . . . smartly sharp social detail, high-fidelity dialogue, vivid evocation of place . . . ironic wit and exuberant guyings of paranormal gobbledegook

Fuelled by an energetic intelligence. Along with a love of big ideas came narrative zest, verbal and comic flair, and an acute eye for contemporary mores both East and West . . . Gods with Men marks another new and bold departure . . . This really is Kunru's great American novel . . . Compulsively readable, skilfully orchestrated, Kunzru's American odyssey brings a new note into his underlying preoccupation with human identity'

Being able to create a vivid sense of place is one of the hallmarks of a quality literary writer, but few could have done so as brilliantly as Hari Kunzru in his latest novel Gods without Men

Intensely involving . . . Gods Without Men is one of the best novels of the year