One of the most consistently dazzling writers of her generation... Kennedy's stories are a little like love: no matter how many times they break your heart, you still come back for more. This collection proves, once again, that it is always worth it.

Kennedy is brilliantly, painfully funny about the fault-lines and disaster zones of the typical relationship

This book celebrates love like a hungry dog celebrates the corpse of a rabbit... Kennedy is, if you like, the Anti-Cartland... Magnificently bleak.

It is Kennedy’s portrayal of the difficulty, if not seeming impossibility, of connecting with other people that makes these stories so moving… Kennedy’s disjointed, angular style and weird, displaced atmospherics really work

A.L. Kennedy's masterful new collection... Stories appear to roam chaotically, like the mind, but of course they are neat, perfect messes.

The book is filled with lyrical beauty, wry humour and acute observation, imbued by a willingness to dig deep and give voice to the reader’s rawest emotions. All the Rage is an outstanding collection, full of stories to be savoured.

[Kennedy] is the god of her own godless world. Her prose moves in more mysterious ways than mere comprehension will allow.

A satisfying diversity of experience and insight.

Full of moments of risk, which Kennedy's characters handle self-consciously and with care... She strings lyrical sentences together effortlessly.

Beautifully crafted... It would be impossible not to admire these stories.

Kennedy dissects the small intimacies of inner thought and holds them palm-up, naked, there for our observation and evaluation. Her prose is typically direct, her sentences clear cut and yet capable of great tenderness.

Full of heartache and the ways in which we hurt each other, and ourselves... Fans of Kennedy's quirky expressionism won't be disappointed.

Evidence that, at her best, there’s no-one to touch Kennedy.

Full of challenges and beauty.

This is a sure-footed and intelligently organized collection. These small pieces encompass an extensive emotional territory

An arresting collection that blends poetic imagery, raw emotion and cerebral insight

Vivid and unsettling. Johnson’s brilliant short stories will haunt and taunt you.

Fen is uncanny and fantastic: it will be really exciting to see what Johnson does next.

An absorbing read, blending dark magical realism and social critique… The stories are made memorable by their uncanny imagery and the rich originality of the language. But a strongly conjured atmosphere is the driving force, with the damp, liminal qualities of the setting seeping into every aspect of the narratives. A brilliant debut.

Tremendously strange short stories but they stay with you.

A strange, fantastical squelch through watery East Anglia...one of the most impressive collections of short stories in recent years

A superb first novel . . . [it is] a significant achievement to produce a book of this quality . . . [there is] a wonderful sense of place.

Reminiscent of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and just as ambitious

An impressive debut.

Already on the longlist for the Baileys Prize, this is an island story told in daisy-chain sequence, a series of succinct vignettes that come together as a vivid portrait of the Shore itself, until you can almost smell the salt air and the stench of slaughtered chicken.

Some extraordinary images . . . a wonderful first novel.

Taylor’s prose is dreamy and surprisingly playful.

A wonderful read.

Exuberant, magical and incredibly ambitious, but Sara Taylor pulls it off with style.

Taylor shows a special affinity with the lives of women that makes for a powerful debut