Why do we continue to find Eugene O'Neill's family drama so moving? Partly because the play draws so closely on the author's own experience... [but] what also grips us is the tension between O'Neill's tight classical structure and the surging contradictions of family life

Harrowing... the dramatic impact is shattering... The passage in which he describes his dirt-poor childhood is overpoweringly moving

O'Neill keeps control with dry humour. This is an acute study of the behavioural ruts as well as the mercurial complexity of family relationships

Epic... a tale of monstrously corrupted intimacy

A thought-provoking and highly topical story about the complex connections to be found in art, politics and family life.

Enter Ghost is a masterful, deeply convincing portrait of the all-too-real consequences of political theater - in both senses. A moving and important novel that presses upon the urgent question of how we ought to live in the midst of the rubble (and ongoing chaos) of political crisis.

A magnificent, deeply imagined story... A thought-provoking, engrossing story about the connections to be found in art, politics and family life.

Outstanding. Next-level. Aesthetically, intellectually, emotionally and culturally satisfying... Isabella Hammad is incapable of striking a false note. She immerses her heroine in volatile territory with the accuracy, compassion and coolness of a surgical knife sliding into a diseased body. The result is a stunning beauty - an eye-opening, uplifting novel that grants its vulnerable cast and their endeavors a rare and graceful dignity.

There could hardly be a more urgent time to understand the inner lives of Palestinians, which are here depicted with poignance and grace.

A richly layered novel... Hammad takes her time, writing with an elegant, confident poise and accumulation of detail this is refreshingly unfashionable.

Compelling... The blend of personal and political feels remarkably fresh.

A stirring novel and a tribute to those Palestinians who have attempted, and attempt, to make art despite the forces ranged against them.

Terrific… Enter Ghost though contemporary, is thoroughly infused with Palestine’s past - and thoroughly haunted by Sonia’s. Hammad, who is both a delicate writer and an exact one, intertwines the two, taking care to give Sonia as many personal ghosts as she does historical ones.

Powerful... Enter Ghost is a remarkable work by a novelist who writes about Palestinians with the same love and exasperation that one might feel towards one's family.

A soul-stirring and dramatic tale of a Palestinian family's exile and reconciliation... The layered text, rich in languages and literary references, dives deep into Sonia's consciousness, illustrating her hopes for what art can accomplish. This deeply human work will stay with readers.

Perhaps all I can say is that I am so grateful – for Enter Ghost’s precision, for its imagination of theatre as occupiable and reclaimable space, for the way it observes and reifies resistance with such clarity... An ambitious and remarkably accomplished work... Compelling, commanding… A page-turner of real depth as well as some remarkable lightness.

Levy's elegantly ludic investigation into selfhood, mother love and meaning

Levy fans will delight in August Blue’s heady exploration of female creativity

I'm obsessed. This is a masterful, at times familiar and relatable, yet ultimately disturbing portrayal of a friendship. Constantly surprising, often dark and at times sinister, it is without fail always entertaining and funny

Both wickedly entertaining and thought-provoking. I couldn't stop turning the page!

A unique novel... with a clever premise and definitely one that will provoke a lot of discussion.

Funny, fresh and full of drama, not a word goes to waste in this extraordinary debut

A striking, often wickedly funny debut... Agbaje-Williams brilliantly captures the inner monologue as well as the conversational style of each of the three through which their whole cultural milieu takes shape around them... An original and potent comedy of manners with an ingenious final twist

The best debut I've read in years - a tender examination of class, masculinity and place

Amazingly assured first novel. Magee is too good a writer... Gentle as well as brutal

As beautiful as it is brilliant. Reading Close to Home is like crossing a frontier into a new and thrilling territory

Close To Home announces an exciting new voice - at once open and wary, tender and unyielding - and sharply alive to the pains and discoveries and mysteries of youth

Ringing out clear and true as a bell, it gleams with tenderness and perception. There are few narrators so unassuming and unaffected, yet so full of sharp intelligence

Precise, compulsive, companionable and genuinely moving. Michael Magee writes a world we see far too little of in contemporary literature. We need books like this

A beautiful and devastating debut novel about political memory, violence, masculinity, and the impossibility of escaping your origins.

A sharp and humane novel about a young man, and a city, caught in the painful throes of reimagining themselves. It rings with authenticity, and the wisdom of hard-won observation and experience - a hymn to the ways in which art can be a lifeline and an escape. Michael Magee's debut is an important addition to the burgeoning new canon of Belfast literature

Compulsively readable - you will need to know how this ends!

Sharp, immediate, beautiful writing. A vivid portrait of modern Belfast and of how our circumstances shape our lives. Every character is drawn with nuance and complexity, with great precision and attention to detail. I really loved this book

Artfully crafted, compassionate, precise and unafraid. I loved this book

Close to Home tracks brilliantly written characters across a vividly drawn Belfast

One of the year’s most distinctive and immersive debuts . . . Drawing on his own experiences, Michael Magee refreshes the post-Troubles novel to wrestle with his community’s painful heritage of violence and poverty. It sounds bleak, but Sean’s voice fizzes with life

It's hard to find fault with a debut novel that unfold its storylines and characters with such care, handling themes of class, masculinity, addiction and trauma with both tenderness and a matter-of-factness

Michael Magees Close to Home is yet another brilliant novel to emerge from Northern Ireland, making sense of the impact of the long conflict and the transition to troubled peace; Magee powerfully delineates the psychology of those crushed by betrayal

A searing debut with an unforgettable voice, Chain Gang All-Stars will force you to reevaluate what freedom in America really means.

It is an up-to-the-minute j'accuse that speaks to the eternal question of what it truly means to be free. And human. Imagine The Hunger Games refashioned into a rowdy, profane, and indignant blues shout at full blast.

Breathtaking and pulse-pounding... Both the political allegory and the edge-of-your-seat action work beautifully. Readers will be wowed.

[An] enthralling debut... An unmissable read

Adjei-Brenyah compels the reader to look beyond the page, blurring the lines between modern America and the hellscape he so energetically imagines

Few others this year have touched Adjei-Brenyah for ideas and ambition… perhaps the most indelible novel of 2023

A fizzy love letter to the prototypical romcom

So much of Sittenfeld's work exists in the dissection and comprehension of female desire

Flirting with the tropes of its namesake genre, this playful novel follows Sally, a writer on an "S.N.L."-like show called "Night Owls," who falls in love with one of its guest hosts. Their relationship develops via e-mail in the post-grocery-wiping, pre-vaccine days of covid-19. When Sally decides to visit her beloved in L.A., their time together in his Topanga mansion requires her to navigate incredulity, insecurity, and an offer that she feels is an "affront to my independence." The novel is preoccupied with the instinctual nature of self-sabotage, and with the fulfillment that can come from defying ingrained impulses

Insightful romcom sparkles with real wit and wisdom

Whip smart and really funny

Scores big on giving readers an insight into the machinations of a TV writers-room

Full of dazzling banter and sizzling chemistry

If you ever wanted a backstage pass to Saturday Night Live, this book is for you

Excellent

Both a brilliant portrait of the comedy world and a witty grown-up love story. Lives up to its name