It takes a brave author to attempt a contemporary reimagining of such a beloved novel. Luckily, India Knight [...] has courage and talent in spades ... It's beautifully and meticulously done, echoing the detail of the original plot as far as feasible, but with contemporary twists ... Knight is warmer than Mitford, and more comforting

Fans of Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit Of Love will adore this brilliant contemporary take ... The writing is as sharp, the details as perfect, the jokes as funny as [the] original

The delight is in the details. Knight's are bang on, and there's joy in spotting them ... There's heart as well as humour: it was, and remains, a sincere romance ... Pursuit of Love diehards can rest easy: your blood vessels are safe with this faithful, fiercely funny homage

In less talented hands, Knight's retelling of this classic novel might have gone horribly wrong. But Darling is a treat, with whip-smart dialogue, larger-than- life characters, witty observations and a heart-breaking twist ... Fans will love Knight's clever re-imagining of this classic tale - and new readers will relish the chance to discover the glorious Radletts

What could have been a disaster - a modern reimagining of Nancy Mitford's superlative comedy of manners The Pursuit of Love - is an absolute triumph. Romantic, clever and oh-so funny

A perfect comfort read: the kind of book you take into the bath and keep reading even when the water has gone cold, a one-sitting, dark-at-four joy ... Darling is a very human book, full of feelings and heartbreak and humour and joy

Beguiling reimagining ... Spry and wry Darling is delicious

[A] lively modern update of a passionately loved classic ... A sizzling modern-day comedy of manners. Plenty of Mitfordian wit but with Ukip peers and mobile phones

I found myself tearing through, beguiled by Knight's faithful channelling of Radlett ways, wiles and speech patterns ... Reinventing anything so beloved is a formidable challenge, and Knight has risen to it admirably

A modern retelling of Nancy Mitford's beloved The Pursuit of Love ... Knight nails the wit and satire

Sheer brilliance. Darling is hilarious and heartbreaking and vivid and and clever and utterly compulsive - I absolutely loved it

Total escapist bliss. A joyous updating of the Mitford classic. I loved every page

A savagely funny, bracingly sad, dazzlingly clever reimagining of The Pursuit of Love. I loved it

A triumph! Brilliantly done, faithful but imaginative, tremendously romantic and very funny. Meeting the Radlett family again in the 21st century was an absolute a treat, rather like hearing a new arrangement of beloved old carol and hearing it anew, with trumpets

Darling is a black forest gateau of a book: rich characters, sumptuous prose, delicious dialogue, and layered throughout with sharp wit and intelligence (which are even better than the cherry liqueur the gateau calls for). Somehow, India Knight's writing manages to be hilarious, melancholy, insightful, and romantic all at the same time. Treat yourself to this novel

A wonderfully musical story about modern relationships and lost loves

A beautiful story

I loved this book. I loved Gaunt and Ellwood and how their hearts and stories became entwined in this masterful debut. My heart also became entwined with theirs, and there is no greater joy for me as a reader than that. Alice Winn and In Memoriam have my gratitude.

A Novel of admirable historical heft and - even better - of rare, and resonant, empathy.

I read through the night to finish this blistering debut, too feverishly engrossed to sleep. When was the last time characters in a novel seemed so real to me, so cherishable, so alive? Alice Winn has made familiar history fresh; no account of the First World War has made me feel so vividly its horror, or how irrevocably it mutilated the world. That In Memoriam is also an extraordinary love story is a sign of Winn's wild ambition and her prodigious gifts: this is a novel that claims both beauty and brutality, the whole range of human life.

A central relationship so utterly convincing that it will leave you bereft. Visceral, heartbreaking but full of heart, this is a masterpiece of war literature

Alice Winn has pulled off a remarkable feat in making these men and the horrors of the First World War come so viscerally alive. It was like looking at a black and white photograph which has been colourised, and suddenly you understand that these shadowy people from the past also dreamed and cried and breathed just as we do now. I was completely absorbed, moved, and transported

This debut captures an epic love story amid the brutalities of war

Stunning . . . brutal and unflinching but also beautiful. A triumph

Winn offers a fresh look at a subject many of us believe we know well. A tender story as much about love as it is about war

A searing and harrowing novel about the love story between two young men men played out against a backdrop of the horrors of World War I. The writing was so visceral and intense, I honestly felt as if I was in the trenches with them, and I'm still thinking about the book weeks after reading it. An incredible debut.

In Memoriam is magnificent-dazzling and wrenching, witty and wildly romantic, with echoes of Brideshead Revisited and Atonement. I loved it

Extraordinary. A truly epic tale of love unspoken, love shared and love lost. An instant and unforgettable classic

An astonishingly confident and impressive debut, this love story set in the First World War is shocking, brutal, and memorable. It left me shaken - and very impressed

Winn's superb debut chronicles a romance between two English boarding school classmates during WWI . . . both men grapple with the realities of war, which Winn vividly renders with descriptions of the wounded . . . . Amid the chaos, Winn stages excellent action scenes: a tense scouting mission, as well as a tunnel-digging episode involving an escape from a German POW camp. The hunger the men feel, as well as their shell shock, is palpable, but it is the men's love for each other that resonates. This is a remarkable achievement.

Winn's finely accomplished debut novel is a rare thing, an intoxicating romance and an impossible-to-put-down war story in one . . . Winn captures the war as it looked, sounded, and smelled, but the ultimate death-defying acts here are in literature, breathtaking bravery, and love

Powerful, deeply imagined . . . One of the wonderful aspects of Winn's debut is that, just when you think you've settled into a tender literary novel, its revelations and surprises begin to unfurl at an impressive pace that reads more like a thriller . . . Winn's battle scenes are hair-raising and terrifying, but her portraits of Sidney and Henry are intimate and evocative . . . A love story that's hard to forget

An epic sweep and an incredible intimacy that makes In Memoriam feel vividly alive...this is a book filled with death and suffering, but also with life and longing. War is hell, yes, but somehow love endures. You read it with your heart in your throat, and your knuckles white. The debut of the year.

Fast-paced and gripping, this debut brings fresh eyes to bear on the incomprehensible carnage that decimated a generation...a moving elegy for lost youth

I'm still recovering from Alice Winn's phenomenal debut novel, and I know that many others will be feeling the same...Winn's characters will go down in literary history

an impressive blend of madcap action, moving meditations on loss and some spicy sex scenes.

This is my standout debut of the year: a page-turning, heart-thudding story of love and war that will burrow deep into your psyche.

Cinematic in scope and emotionally intimate, it viscerally describes the violence of conflict, while beautifully capturing the brave hopefulness of the duo's relationship.

In Memoriam is utterly compelling. These young men live and love with a bright urgency, even as their world burns. Alice Winn has written one of the finest debut novels I have read in years. Her inventiveness, deftness of touch and command of period detail suggests this book marks the start of a truly first-rate career

I adored Redhead by the Side of the Road... It is so subtle, and so brilliant as are all Tyler's novels... Witty and warm, its only fault was that I wanted it to be twice as long!

Tender and beautifully paced

Compassionate and alert to the complexities in even the most ordinary lives, the book reminds us why, at 79, Tyler is held in such high regard

The qualities that have long won Tyler admiration and affection - wry humour, shrewd perception, characters who leap off the page with authenticity - are in generous supply

You can't go wrong with Anne Tyler. She makes it look easy creating characters that feel so believable, so three-dimensional

Tyler engrosses with the 'and-thenand-then' of domestic detail

I do think the world would probably be a better place if everyone read Anne Tyler . . . She's such a brilliantly empathetic writer - there's no 'them' and 'us' in Tyler's world - and she often writes from the perspective of the kind of people who you would walk past and barely notice in the street . . . Reading Tyler helps people to become better people, and I really fully believe that

Tyler's irresistibly readable 23rd novel follows Micah, a socially inept, OCD-ish IT man whose orderly life is turned upside down by the arrival of a son

Tyler's affectionate and quietly observant novel reveals her deep empathy for the hidden struggles of everyday lives

Another shrewd yet kindly novel about the mysterious business of family life by one of the world's great writers

A charmingly offbeat love story

Bursting with vitality and variety, it's a tour de force . . . fizzes with the qualities – characters who almost leap off the page with authenticity, speech and body language wonderfully caught – that, for more than half a century, have won her such admiration and affection

One of the most influential writers of her generation . . . Her books are so irresistibly readable that it's startling to realise what technical marvels they often are

Emma Straub is such a funny and brilliant writer and this time-travelling tale is a charming exploration of what it would be like to find yourself younger and surrounded by the people you love when they're still at the height of their power

Wise and often hilarious

Readers will devour this witty and warmly satisfying novel

A precise and observant writer whose supple prose carries the story along without a snag. Straub's characters are a quirky and interesting bunch . . . it's a pleasure spending time with them

Devilishly observed

Sprinkled with humour and insight

Straub is consistently excellent