There is a chortle-inducing moment on almost every page... Dunthorne is not only one of contemporary fiction's funniest voices but also one of its most generous and perceptive

Dunthorne is a superbly economical writer... He is also properly funny. There are several snort-through-your-nose moments. But throughout, the novel's comedy is always balanced by insight and poignancy

The Adulterants is thrust-the-book-at-the-person-next-to-you hilarious

Joe Dunthorne is one of our best young writers

Bristles with a deliciously sour, dyspeptic humour and is excellent at skewering the lifestyle habits of a liberal-minded middle-class

Perfectly formed... a pin-sharp skewering of a certain type of modern urban thirtysomething male, trapped in a protracted adolescent state. It's one not to be missed

The Adulterants, from its punning title onwards, is brilliantly knowing about its knowingness. It knows the only way we'll tolerate a narrator as annoying as Ray is to punish him for the very virtues that make him a good narrator - nosiness and eloquence

A sharp satire of contemporary London and the modern urban male

Blisteringly funny and brimming with caustic charm - a joyous diagnosis of our modern ills that made me laugh out loud even when it was breaking my heart

Dark, beautifully wry, and side-splittingly excruciating, The Adulterants is a triumph of voice and vision

A tale of modern manhood, full of malaise, melancholy and wryly funny observations

A richly illuminating comedy of disappointment, uproarious and mournful, that places Joe Dunthorne triumphantly in the tradition of Evelyn Waugh and (that other Swansea resident) Kingsley Amis. A deft, brilliant, surprising joyride

Joe Dunthorne's new book is a pleasure - I was very fortunate to get to read his book Submarine early and reading this one was equally thrilling. I owe him a great deal ( but refuse to repay him)

Smartly written, The Adulterants riffs on London's housing crisis, competitively sensitive men and social media with wry insight

A creation of some genius. Dunthorne is a naturally comic writer

Publisher's Description: Thirty-something freelance tech journalist Ray hates his job, resents his more successful friends, is terrified of the London property ladder, and has just accidently cheated on his pregnant girlfriend. But no matter how bad life seems, he's about to learn that things can always get worse... From the comic genius behind Submarine comes a hilariously scathing new novel about modern life

Dunthorne captures the mores of Britain today better than novelists twice his age

Brilliant and laugh-out-loud enjoyable

Insightful comic writing that manages to be both tender and biting

A brilliant first novel by a young man of ferocious comic talent

A beautiful, tragic and poignant novel.

In this year’s hottest new releases.

Tender, wise and beautifully written, this is sad and deeply moving stuff from Barnes. Highly recommended.

Affecting.

A brave and expansive work, compellingly told.

A thoroughly rewarding book – a compassionate, touching and funny account… A profound book, it compels one to think about one’s own life.

A brilliant, rueful look at love.

Moving, funny, with ingenious emotional intelligence, it’s one to read and read again.

Barnes’s novel chronicles their romance with an austere tenderness

[Barnes’s] facility for writing artfully conceived and executed novels about unfulfilled, disappointed lives has risen to almost unassailable heights.

Julian Barnes writes shockingly well about emotion… The Only Story is devastating and wonderful.

A solemn-ish meditation on the fallibility of memory… A love story – bitter and sweet in parts – unfurls.

Exquisitely written, flawlessly imagined, The Mermaid & Mrs Hancock's siren song - of courtesans and merchants, shipwrecks and wonders, love and grief, ambition and passion - will echo like the ocean in a seashell long after the last page is turned.

[A] gripping debut… independence, love, class, death and gender stereotypes — are skilfully explored here through a late 18th-century lens

Beautifully written, sinuous, enchanting, brilliantly researched, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock goes deep into the eighteenth century - its grand front rooms, the secret places, the streets and the ocean that changed everything about Britain and it lays bare the hearts of a cast of unforgettable characters

This story really is spellbinding, an unforgettable jewel of a novel, filled to the brim with intelligence, heart and wit.

Beautifully written… By turns bawdy, witty and moving this is a glorious romp through Georgian London, in “the age of unlikely ascents”. With a truly gorgeous package á la The Essex Serpent, it deserves to be huge

Delightful… A gloriously immersive read, bringing Georgian London vividly to life… The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock impresses with Gowar’s attention to vivid and sensual detail

Its energy, characterisation and great sense of period completely seduced me.

An utterly absorbing read.

A gorgeously immersive novel.

Stunning.

In 2018 [mermaids] are back in vogue.

A terrific debut

The Mermaid And Mrs Hancock is the rare book that actually lives up to its hype and I’d be surprised if it wasn’t this year’s The Essex Serpent. Lush, vivid descriptions of 1780s Soho, proto-feminism, sparkly dialogue and a pleasingly irreverent style, it’s historical fiction even for people who don’t like historical fiction.

A tale of love, family and social status movingly told.

An absorbing tale of curiosity and obsession… Gowar’s prose is marvellous… There’s a beautiful balance of rhythm and intrigue, and an eye for what brings a book alive.

The most anticipated novel of the year.

An accomplished, captivating debut novel.

- The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is a roistering, swaggering, bawdy novel… [a] confident and accomplished debut

Lush, vivid descriptions of 1780s Soho, proto-feminism, sparkly dialogue and a pleasingly irreverent style.

Prose that’s as effervescent as it is intelligent.

Gowar’s prose shimmers.

Rich and humorous, it’s a heady period whirl with a magic realist twist.

A highly impressing debut… An absorbing tale of sex, money, ambition and the lure of the new.

Gowar’s wonderful novel expertly captures that sense of a more fluid society… An engrossing and well-paced novel, shot through with melancholy, yet filled with wonder and desire. The sort of book you lose yourself in for days.

Imogen Hermes Gowar’s bawdy, picturesque romp through the heady miasma of Georgian London is easily one of the most wonderfully immersive, richly drawn books I’ve read in years… This piece of historical fiction is really something special… Some truly exquisite writing.

All-consuming and spellbinding.

Gowar's writing is energetic, and she has wonderful attention both to physical and emotional detail and to the circumstances that constrain lives

This glittering debut novel examines every rung of 18th-century London’s social ladder with keen wit and in delicious detail

A Dazzling account of dreams and desire in Georgian London