Stella Sweeny writes off her car . . . and his. But is it a blessing in disguise or just a taste of more to come? Entertaining and uplifting, The Woman Who Stole My Life is BESTSELLING author Marian Keyes' intriguing tale of finding true happiness in unexpected places . . .

Ever wished you could trade your life in for a better one?

A layered and subtle exploration of masculinity, fear and desire, A Natural is as good a novel as I’ve read in years. The poignancy of Ross Raisin’s characters are equalled only by the brilliance of his writing.

Admirable … genius … amazing… vertiginous.

A Natural is a brilliant, deft and moving coming of age novel about the nature of masculinity and sexuality set against the backdrop of sport. Sensitively and beautifully drawn, it confirms Ross Raisin as a superb writer.

Most novels about football aren’t really about football… They tend to avoid describing the game itself, with its strange mixture of pelting energy and exquisite boredom. Instead they shunt it into the background or repackage it as a metaphor, allowing the simple whacking of a ball into the net to be used as a way of writing about far less tangible goals. Ross Raisin’s latest novel is refreshingly different. Following the fortunes of two lower-league footballers, it is a bold attempt to capture sport in the raw… pitch-perfect.

A brave, subtle novel… To a non-fan, the literary football novel can seem a little daunting… Luckily, Ross Raisin’s exceptional new novel addresses and overturns these preconceptions and conventional notions of masculinity in the most unexpected and sophisticated fashion… Within the sinuous torque of its sentences, the book presents a subtle and portrait of a soul in torment. It’s a winner.

Football, like love, is a world of extreme highs and lows, and the protagonists in this sensitively crafted novel can only find joy when they accept who they really are – five stars.

A powerful evocation of repressed emotion – The Remains of the Day as told by Match of the Day.

A Natural…is not just a football novel. It’s about depression, loneliness and the truth behind masculinity.

Excellent… Raisin excels at hidden stories… this is a richer, deeper novel that purposefully rejects the over-exposed Premier League image of the beautiful game for the grubbier hardscrabble of life at the bottom of League Two… Raisin is really good at exposing the ways men parade ideas of masculinity… a deeply absorbing novel about the coded nature of identity, whether you are a footy fan or not.

Raisin does excellent documentary work. His picture of claustrophobic small-club life is very convincing, and he has fun crushing any of his readers’ lingering Roy-of-the-Rovers fantasies… This is a brilliant portrait of a under-explored corner of English life.

Raisin is an extremely skilled world-builder, and his evocation of a lower league football club is intensively, compellingly imagined… As with all the best sports novels, the game at the heart of A Natural is more than just a game.

A believable glimpse into a closed world, from a writer whose outlook is formidably open.

Movingly explores serious themes… With this book, it feels like the football novel has grown up. If only the game would follow its example.

This is a beautifully constructed story of slow-burning passion and revenge and what it means to come of age in the high-stakes world of professional sport. It is not just a novel for football fans or sports enthusiasts, but for anyone who cares about how people try to manage their lives face with intense pressure to conform.

Ross Raisin has done his homework so well that I spent much of the novel wondering which club had let him inside the changing-room for a season… this may be the most naturalistic rendering of professional football in British fiction since Brian Glanville’s 1971 children’s novel Goalkeepers Are Different.

The pantheon of top-class soccer novelists has never been large, but with A Natural Ross Raisin can immediately be ushered into the Premier League exective box occupied by J.L. Carr’s How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won The F.A. Cup (1975), Gordon Williams and Terry Venables They Used to Play on Grass (1971), and David Peace’s The Damned Utd (2006).

A Natural is a football novel that non-fans can enjoy.

A Natural is a vast advancement on Raisin’s already considerable achievement in [his] earlier novels – broader in focus, eschewing the interiority of his previous novels without sacrificing intimacy.

There are visceral moments, on and off the pitch, but A Natural’s storytelling purposely avoids Messi-like flourishes. Raisin should be applauded for tackling sexuality within football.

The deservedly feted author Ross Raisin has created a gripping coming-of-age story in this fictionalised exploration of the ruthless compromises the Beautiful Game forces on its players… A subtle tale of what it means to be “a natural” – not just in the masculine world of football, but anywhere.

More than a book about sport it is a book about a young man struggling to find his groove in the rough and tumble of fairly unforgiving, male society.

In A Natural, Raisin delves into the life of a lower league English football team – a subject never covered before, as far as I know, in literary fiction. Perhaps it doesn’t sound an immediately appealing prospect. But he makes it wholly absorbing.

[A] gripping, well-written and moving story, which should interest anyone curious about enclosed worlds and hidden lives… Raisin captures both the sweat and the glory of football. He has mastered the register of manager-speak, with its urgently shouted clichés, and the earnest banter on fans’ messaging boards.

A Natural makes a conceptual leap that most old-style football fiction laboured to achieve: in the end its characters are as important as the milieu that tethers them and what emerges is an exceptionally good novel, which just happens to take place on a football pitch.

Raisin provides an authentic portrayal of life in the lower divisions both on and off the pitch. The fine details are present in the pre-match nerves in the changing rooms, the neatly laid out kit and the smell of Deep Heat, but it is the unchecked laddishness, the fake camaraderie and the close scrutiny from supporters on social media that Raisin wants us to feel… This is a rare novel about the challenge of being a gay professional footballer and hopefully it will go some way to help changing perceptions in a sport that has still got a very long way to go.

Ross Raisin’s book about a gay footballer, demands about 200 pages of patience, but you won’t regret it. In the vertiginous second half of this rich, wise study of masculinity, Raisin demonstrates with extraordinary sensitivity how difficult it can be to attain E.M. Forster’s dictum, “Only connect!”

The virtue of devastatingly simple storytelling was also felt in Ross Raisin’s A Natural…one of my favourite novels of the year, about a gay footballer hiding an affair with the groundsman at his struggling lower-league team.

A deeply moving portrait of fear and acceptance.

This seems like one of those books designed to fold straightaway into contemporary liberal conversation.

The Summer of Impossible Things is special - magnificent and magical, it truly captures the essence of love. Epic, romantic, tender and beautiful, I adored it.

The Summer of Impossible Things is that rare thing: a deftly crafted, utterly compelling story written entirely from the heart. Hauntingly beautiful, heart-rending and unique, this is an instant classic. I sobbed my heart out and adored it!

GORGEOUS. It's so moving and romantic and I want to re-read it immediately

Definitely more Time Traveller’s Wife than Dr Who

Packs an emotional punch that's second to none - and the author's hallmark. Rowan Coleman picks you up, spins you around and dances you to the very edge of love. Glorious

Powerfully moving, vivid, glowing with love and humanity... I loved every word

The Summer of Impossible Things is utterly beautiful and engrossing - and Coleman is a brilliant storyteller

I fell into the pages of this beautiful book, vivid, emotional, and so very evocative, it was an utter joy from first page to last

THE SUMMER OF IMPOSSIBLE THINGS is truly a thing of great beauty.'

The pages turn themselves in this perfect summer read. Rowan Coleman has written a time-bending mystery with a huge heart. I loved it

The Summer of Impossible Things is captivating, thought-provoking and beautifully written. Rowan Coleman has written a book to savour, and characters to care about. I loved it.

A romantic holiday read with substance…a timeless love story…heart-wrenching

You're going to love, The Summer of Impossible Things...A rollercoaster ride back and forward through time...enthralling

A wonderful story

magical and fresh...totally unexpected

A sparkling novel of hope and sacrifice’

Magical, heart-warming and time-bending story.