An unsettling, sinewy debut, startling in its venom and disarming in its humour from the very first sentence

Extraordinary. Exquisitely written, painfully exhilarating, impossible to put down... An elegant family story that sizzles with hatred... Come for the effortlessly stylish writing, stay for the boiling wrath

Arresting and fiercely intelligent, disarmingly witty and frank... Horror stories from the past seep into the present, as Doshi builds her portrait of a fractured mother-daughter relationship

A masterclass. Crisp, engaging, perfectly tragic in the way that families often tend to be... Doshi writes sharply, in no-nonsense prose, not a single sentence in the book can be omitted... Avni Doshi is a force to watch out for in the literary world

A corrosive, compulsive debut

Subtle, intelligent, thrilling, visceral

This caustic tale of a destructive mother-daughter bond is as potent as its title might suggest... It bristles with sharp, chilly aphorisms... Doshi's visceral debut is a no-holds-barred excavation of how hate can both poison and sustain

Scouringly brilliant, a blazing debut that sticks in the mind like caramel blackened to the bottom of a pan... Doshi draws our relationships, both with the truth and with other people, with words that glitter sharp as shards of broken mirror

When does self-determination become selfishness? What can you learn from a bad mother? ...Sorrowful, sceptical and electrifyingly truthful about mothers and daughters

A sly, slippery, often heartbreaking novel about the role memory plays within families

A raw, vividly described exploration of the toxic relationship between two women who are forever bound together

Burnt Sugar straddles the line between pain and beauty. It makes the stomach churn. And, like all great literature, it prompts the question of the reader: is this you?

Acerbic, full of wit and cool intelligence - every sentence is a coiled spring and each psychological portrait burns itself into the mind. I couldn't put it down

Daring and deliciously dark, Burnt Sugar will keep you gripped until the very last sentence

Raw, wise and cuttingly funny on love and cruelty, marriage and motherhood, art and illness, and one woman's fight for her sense of self

Avni Doshi quietly, cleanly, slices through the heart... Impeccably insightful, carved from love, rage, and grief, here all embellishment is discarded, all artifice shorn - motherhood, family, memory, language - to reveal something devastating about our relationships, with ourselves and with those closest to us

A brilliant debut, about mothers and daughters, that manages be acerbic and brittle all at the same time

A courageous novel written in spare, gleaming sentences. It made me hold my breath and gather it up again

Beautifully grotesque, vivid, unexpected. Doshi knows her characters so intimately I felt I could reach out and touch the skin they're in

Crystalline, surgical, compulsively readable. An examination of toxic relationships and the ties that bind us

A disturbing tale of memory and forgetfulness, questioning the relevance and the authenticity of both

Taut, unsettling, ferocious

Avni Doshi writes fearlessly, with a cruel, almost terrifying intelligence. I was discomfited and exhilarated

Wildly entertaining

I LOVED this absolute cracker of a book about the cuckoo in the next and a toxic female friendship. Highly recommended

I loved hanging out with Ronke, Simi and Boo. A brilliant portrayal of how complicated friendships can sometimes be

This story draws you in and spits you out, breathless. Echoes of Atwood's The Robber Bride but so its own thing. A treat.

A heady mix of friendship, dark comedy and murder. WAHALA is razor-sharp

May's nuanced exploration of race and gender makes this refreshing. This will leave readers intrigued to see what May does next

A terrific, witty debut

WAHALA hooked me from page one and kept me enthralled till the (TWIST!) end. A riot of colour and noise, friendships, enemies, secrets, lies and soul food. Written with a lightness of touch. Insightful, clever, and honest. I will read anything and everything she writes

This gripping debut is a journey of friendship, revenge and finding your true self

Nikki May builds a propulsive reading experience as she slowly reveals Isobel's manipulations while keeping the reasons behind them hidden. Compelling character studies of each of the women don't shy away from the jealousies and judgements that sometimes make the line between friend and enemy razor thin...A fascinating look at the dark side of female friendship

A funny brilliant read

This will satisfy hungry appetites and blow your thriller taste buds. Deliciously spicy

Nikki May's sharp and funny debut novel is a delight on many levels. WAHALA bursts with life from start to finish

May seamlessly weaves love, betrayal, self-reflection, and Nigerian food, clothing, and customs into this fast-paced debut...Fans of domestic suspense will revel in this tale of friendship, family, and forgiveness, set in the cultural milieu of Lagos

Sharp and darkly witty

A rapid and wildly hilarious page-turner

A hotly tipped debut for 2022

WAHALA combines a frank and daring exploration of modern female friendship with a dark, punchy thriller

Fabulously fun

May's skill for weaving together entertaining personal problems with a wistfulness for Nigerian food, customs and culture is unparalleled. WAHALA is hard to put down - an energetic, entertaining interrogation of a fundamentally flawed friendship

Refreshing and original. Exhilarating

Contemporary female friendship goes glam in this lively debut novel with remarkable depth

I would definitely recommend this book to friends. I already have!

Sharply observed ... sophisticated and culturally adept ... May is a masterful chronicler of Black upper-middle-class lie and ennui in Britain. WAHALA is both great fun and extremely smart in how it captures some of the central issues in modern city living: women's evolving roles in home and work, interracial relationships and multicultural identity, the current competition that runs through so many friendships and daily interactions and, most of all, how easily intimacy can morph into enmity

Witty-wity-edge. Its humour is pin sharp

A dazzling, rich and efferverscent read. It's relevant and full of life. The killer edge was unexpectedly shocking. Just fantastic in every way

A glorious read

Spicy as Aunty K's moin moin, satisfying as a plate of Ronke's jollof rice

Pacy, fun and gripping ... May wanted to write "a brown Sex and the City, or a brown Big Little Lies" - we reckon WAHALA could be just as big

Like "Sex and the City" but set in London. And with mystery. And murder

The upshot is a funny, slightly murdery story about three women and their wahala, or "trouble" - their boyfriends, their professional aspirations, and their weaves

The novel's strength lies in May's attention to her main character's identities. May's breezy prose is well-suited to these moments of casual intimacy, unfolding over drinks, at the hairdresser's or at the kitchen table, where all the best gossip takes place

Some of the smartest reading fun I've had all year