Another beautifully crafted collection of literary short stories form the pen of Margo Lanagan. One to reach for again and again

Each rereading will offer another chance to luxuriate in the richness of the language . . . For thoughtful and reflective young adult(and adult) readers.

The absolute pinnacle of short fiction writers for any age group . . . I’m sure Lanagan has been compared to Angela Carter elsewhere but the often over-looked strange stories of Robert Aickman also spring to mind. Lanagan has a beguiling imagination while her prose is luxurious quicksand and its all too easy for the reader to become dragged under.

10 emotional short stories - all beautifully and hauntingly written...These are not stories to race through, they are stories to be savoured.

We should always make time for short stories. Especially if they are written by Margo Lanagan...Everything is earthy even when it's magic, and so, so believable. I get lost in the worlds she creates and sometimes it's quite difficult to wake myself up when I've finished reading.

There is simply no better author than her...so raw that it made my eyes fog up even though I was just reading black and white print!

A writer that never ceases to bewilder, startle and enchant her readers.

Kennedy can effortlessly inhabit the voice of the female narrator, and Laura’s dilemma will leave you absolutely gripped to the final page

A gripping emotional rollercoaster; pressing so many buttons it’s likely to have readers examining their own what-might-have-beens.

[Kennedy] possesses a Hitchcockian approach to this narrative hub; tension and twists are administered in equal measure in order to retain readers’ emotional attachment to otherwise domestic scenarios. The ordinary becomes, through his carefully plotting, extraordinary. Kennedy’s trick is to pull all the strings of thriller writing in the romance genre… a novel that’s both moving and realistic as it broaches that awful chasm between what we could be and what we presently are.’

A brilliant meditation on regret, fidelity, family, and second chances that will have you breathlessly turning pages to find out what happened in the past and what will happen next ... heartbreaking and hopeful

It is a tribute to Kennedy’s skill that he can take such a hackneyed situation and make the protagonists richly three-dimensional… As love fizzles out, Kennedy finds something redemptive in the triumph of hope over experience.

Sophie Hannah is a genius at creating and building tension and this book is no different.

a beautifully constructed, atmospheric chiller which I highly recommend

Her trademark precision-layered structure creates a multi-dimensional maze that holds at its centre a revelation which is truly hair-raising

Cool, calculating and utterly chilling… to be gulped down with all the lights on and someone to grab when the sense of menace grows too great.

Sophie Hannah is a real star.

Sophie Hannah has quickly established herself as a doyenne of the 'home horror' school of psychological tension, taking domestic situations and wringing from them dark, gothic thrills.

Hannah is a master of intense psychological thrillers . . . Full of twists and turns, and terrifying, too.

She grips from start to finish - a grip which held me against my will because the sustained atmosphere of mild hysteria is hard to take . . . I couldn't put it down.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is one of the most accomplished and affecting books I've read in a very long time.

At the start of Marra's ambitious first novel, set in Chechnya during the Second Chechen War, eight year-old Havaa escapes the Russian soldiers that are carting off her father and flees a home set alight. Marra then plunges into a complex, beautifully crafted series of events, full of secrets and elegant moments, all wreathed in a frozen world.

Some novels defy gravity, spanning years and crossing ruined landscapes and entire solar systems of characters while still maintaining an ethereal, almost impossible lightness. Anthony Marra’s debut novel is one of them, and it does indeed call to mind an astronomical marvel. Taking place in war-ravaged Chechnya across a decade, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a stunning debut, following a timid but determined country doctor and the girl he rescues once her father is arrested and presumably killed. Marra elegantly slides across time and perspective, mastering an omniscient voice that reveals each character’s future, present, and past, all in acrobatic sentences that leap through time.

A flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles… Here, in fresh, graceful prose, is a profound story that dares to be as tender as it is ghastly… I haven’t been so overwhelmed by a novel in years. At the risk of raising your expectations too high, I have to say you simply must read this book

Marra is a brisk and able story-teller, and he moves deftly between a number of characters who are drawn into contact by the war… The writing is vivid throughout

Original, insightful

Witty... ebullient... heartbreaking... our feisty heroine's sparkle never dims

A truthful, profound snapshot of the kind of life that often gets overlooked. Moving, fresh, enlightening. A fantastic novel

A fresh, engaging take on the relationship between rich and poor

A bittersweet coming-of-age tale of displacement during the southern African nation's 'lost decade'

A tale of our time, a powerful condemnation of global inequality from the point of view of a 10-year-old in impossible circumstances... a stunning piece of literary craftsmanship

Bulawayo, whose prose is warm and clear and unfussy, maintains Darling's singular voice throughout, even as her heroine struggles to find her footing. Her hard, funny first novel is a triumph.

Wonderfully, this is a novel whipped with the complexities of African identities in a post-colonial and globalised world and its most compelling theme is that of contemporary displacement, a theme that will resonate with many readers

This is a young author to watch

This is a very readable tale, thanks to some excellent writing and its central character: a likeable heroine in a difficult world

We Need New Names is a distinct and hyper-contemporary treatment of the old You Can’t Go Home Again mould, and the book has more than enough going for it to easily graduate from the Booker longlist to the final six

deeply felt and fiercely written first novel

Bulawayo's novel may scream Africa, but her deft and often comic prose captures memories and tastes, among them the bitterness of disappointment, that transcend borders

Bulawayo excels... there is an inevitable nod to Achebe and the verbal delights and child's-eye view of the world is redolent of The God of Small Things. Otherwise, the magic is all Bulawayo's own

Proof again that the Caine prize for African writers really knows how to pick a winner… [It’s] a tour de force. Ten-year-old Darling is an unforgettable and necessary new voice: add her to the literary cannon

This brilliant novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

An exceptionally fine novel, as powerful and memorable as Coetzee's magnificent Disgrace... We need new novels like this – authentic, original and cathartic

There is no doubt that a new star of African female writing is truly born. The one-to-watch

Follow ten-year-old Darling from the Paradise shantytown to America in this searing indictment of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

Shocking, often heartbreaking – but also pulsing with energy

A poignant, witty, original and lyrical coming of age story

Talented and ambitious

A powerful fictional condemnation of global inequality

From the opening chapter…the first-person narrative achieves a breathtaking vibrancy, ambition and pathos

Deserved all the publicity it got