Author:Sophie Cooke
It is the blazing summer of 1981 and Catherine is laid low by childhood illness. Stuck inside her family's sprawling Victorian mansion at the foot of a Highland mountain, she can only look down into the garden and observe the goings-on upon the lawn.
Sam and Rosa, her elder teenage cousins, have come to spend the school holiday in this seemingly idyllic setting, and Catherine savours the brief visits Sam makes to her room. But when Rosa falls in love with Humberto, a young Spanish man camping in the grounds of the house, and Catherine witnesses a violent attack on Sam's beloved dog, the events of that summer take on a darker hue.
Under the Mountain is a fiercely intelligent and beautifully written novel about domestic politics and first loves, and in an unforgettable narrative that is both moving and haunting, Sophie Cooke powerfully exposes hidden inner lives and reveals the sometimes devastating consequences of love and the lies it can tell.
It is Cooke's dual ability to pick apart beautifully the daytime details of cosy family life while also exploring much loftier themes of God, truth, memory and love that set her aside as a mature, intensely emotional and intelligent writer
—— Sunday TimesThis is a complex, clever novel which on the whole succeeds in its high ambitions
—— Time OutSublime writing... Cooke is excellent on unspoken family tensions and her characters' psychological motivations always ring true with a density that recalls Virginia Woolf. Of the younger generation of Scottish writers being published now, Cooke is one of the best.
—— Scottish Review of BooksA wise, ambitious and involving work flowering in psychological insight, it leaves less nuanced epics in its shade
—— Kevin MacNeil, author of The Stornoway WayWitty, accomplished and highly entertaining
—— Mail on SundayExhilarating...brilliantly plotted
—— New StatesmanWith great panache and assurance, Jon Canter lampoons the pretentions of England's top legal set...this comic tour de force.
—— Emma Hagestadt , IndependentBrilliantly witty
—— Arabella WeirJon Canter projects a series of funny, sometimes hilarious, incidents in which the comedy is structured rather than slapstick, verging on the licentious but masterfully avoiding it
—— Times Literary SupplementWodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny
—— Adele ParksI've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music
—— Simon CallowWodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some
—— Joseph ConnollyI constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language
—— Simon BrettQuite simply, the master of comic writing at work
—— Jane MooreTo pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment
—— John Julius NorwichCompulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!
—— Lindsey DavisThe Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon
—— Kathy LetteWitty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny
—— Arabella WeirThe funniest writer ever to put words to paper
—— Hugh LaurieThe greatest comic writer ever
—— Douglas AdamsP.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century
—— Sebastian FaulksSublime comic genius
—— Ben EltonSublime comic genius
—— Ben EltonYou don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour
—— Stephen FryThe handsome bindings are only the cherry on top of what is already a cake without compare
—— Evening Standard
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