A total delight. Achingly romantic, full of suspense and a beautiful cast of characters. This is going to be huge!

Brittle, spry, spiky, amusing, a comedy of love... an original and distinctive flavour

[Tonks'] novels are valuable curios...of their time. They read like a strange hybrid of Muriel Spark and Beryl Bainbridge with a dash of Joe Orton

What a charismatic writer Rosemary Tonks is. The Bloater is lively and witty with some brilliant metaphors and descriptions, and so atmospheric. I really enjoyed it

It is about flirtation as a method of self-organization, and a crush as a method of self-torture. All of The Bloater, however-every single sentence-is funny

A fascinating insight into contemporary coupledom and family politics. A pageturner full of emotion and fabulous lifestyle detail

Perfectly observed, a reflection of real life we can all learn from

What a stunning story! I absolutely loved this twisty, intriguing tale of strong, loving relationships that begin to buckle under the strain of real life when emotions run out of control. Evocative and intensely moving

Almost painfully real and thoroughly well-written

Sensitive exploration of friendship, mid-life love, marriage and betrayal

Dramatic

Praise for Elizabeth Noble

Elizabeth Noble's unerring eye depicts family life in all its forms, good and bad, in a way we will all recognise. I loved this book

Witty, affectionate and unashamedly tear-jerking

A great writer. You'll be rooting for Noble's protagonists as soon as you meet them

An utterly absorbing multi-generational tale - the beautiful relatable writing we've come to expect from Elizabeth Noble, with a touch of summer magic...I adored it

A moving and warm-hearted novel about love in all its forms...Nobody weaves a complex web of stories with quite the same skill as Elizabeth Noble

Irresistible comfort read

Honest and beautifully written

Noble is the mistress of the tearjerking message of love

A moving and warm-hearted story of friendship and love . . . Elizabeth Noble writes wonderfully real and relatable characters and then puts their lives under the microscope, weaving their stories with tenderness and humanity

Other People's Husbands is a compelling, honest and uplifting tale which will have you hooked from first page to last

My favourite book of 2015 was Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies ... I felt as though I could have gone on reading it forever.

Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff’s remarkable new novel, explodes and rages past any such preconceptions, insisting that the examination of a long-term relationship can be a perfect vehicle for exploring no less than the nature of existence – the domestic a doorway to the philosophical…The deepest satisfaction gained by reading “Furies” after “Fates” lies less in admiring how tidily the puzzle pieces snap together – though they do – than in experiencing one’s own kaleidoscopic shift of emotions and concerns…Rare and impressive…The aforementioned wordplay evokes Nabokov…Groff has created a novel of extraordinary and genuine complexity…The word “ambitious” is often used as code for “overly ambitious”, a signal that an author’s execution has fallen short. No such hidden message here. Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers – with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout.

Fates and Furies is a dazzling novel, its people and its prose wondrously alive from page one. At once intimate and sweeping, this is the story of a marriage as parallel myths-- flaring with passion and betrayal, with redemption and retribution, with the sort of heart-breaking, head-slapping secrets that make you want to seek out someone else who's read it. Lauren Groff is a powerful and graceful writer, one of the best of her generation.

Audacious and gorgeous…Deliciously voyeuristic but also wise on the simultaneous comforts and indignities of romantic partnership…In her previous work Groff proved herself a deft prose stylist, translating the familiar into the remarkable and transcendent. Fates and Furies further showcases this talent…In Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff has taken the struggles and pleasures of marriage and turned them into art, and in that artfulness she reminds us of the dangers and omissions that any storytelling requires.

Fates and Furies is devastatingly good, with the most satisfying ending I've read in a long time. The writing is gorgeous, the plot twisting, and the characters are almost too real – the only thing that keeps it from being the Platonic ideal of a novel is that it can only be read for the first time once. The only response that seemed sufficient in the hours after finishing it was to send several dozen roses, a cake, and my heart to Lauren Groff.

[Fates and Furies is] an engrossing portrayal of a marriage and of life – or how a marriage impacts a life – and is packaged into a deeply poetic and engaging novel of two halves… With frequent asides and a love letter to literature, theatre and art in its pages, Lauren Groff has created something truly incredible… It’s a clever, thought-provoking novel that questions the very notion of how possible it is to ever know someone entirely, all told in such a beautifully crafted way that I’m sure many new readings will be found with each much-deserved re-read.

In a swirling miasma of language, plot, and Greek mythology, Groff weaves a fierce and gripping tale of true love gone asunder…Groff's prose is variously dewy, defiant, salacious, and bleak – a hurricane of words thrown together on every page. Yet so much of the power in this book lies in what's unspoken…It's an intoxicating elixir.

Fates and Furies will keep you gripped until the end. It’s a fascinating study of how relationships are sustained and sacrificed…it is sumptuously written at every turn. For an autumn read to get firmly stuck into, look no further.

An absorbing story of a modern marriage framed in Greek mythology. Groff’s sharply drawn portrait of a marriage begins on a cold Maine beach, with newlyweds “on their knees, now, though the sand was rough and hurt. It didn’t matter. They were reduced to mouths and hands.” This opener ushers in an ambitious, knowing novel besotted with sex – in a kaleidoscope of variety – much more abundant than the commune-dwellers got up to in Groff’s luminous Arcadia (2012). The story centers first on Lancelot “Lotto” Satterwhite, a dashing actor at Vassar, who marries his classmate, flounders, then becomes a famous playwright. Lotto’s name evokes the lottery – and the Fates, as his half of the book is titled. His wife, the imperial and striking Mathilde, takes over the second section, Furies, astir with grief and revenge. The plotting is exquisite, and the sentences hum; Groff writes with a pleasurable, bantering vividness . . . An intricate plot, perfect title, and a harrowing look at the tie that binds.

Fates and Furies captures the vagaries of passion and marriage in ebullient prose.

Like a classic tragedy, Groff’s novel offers high drama, hubris, and epic love, complete with Greek chorus–like asides. A singular and compelling literary read, populated with extraordinary characters; highly recommended.

Comparisons to Gone Girl seem on the surface to fit perfectly. We have a golden couple, Lotto and Mathilde, we have a dark past – like Amy, Lotto is an heir to a large fortune. Yet Fates and Furies is far more subtle – Groff is considering the very nature of story-telling itself… I was reminded more than anything of Macarthy’s The Group... The fates and furies who narrate the novel are never intrusive, their interventions are rare and they pass on the whole unnoticed, but I felt that this worked better than a more grandiose presence might have done. Through them, Groff channels a grace for her protagonists – this is not a story of heroes and villains but rather of humans who long to be better than they are.

An exploration of marriage that turns expectations upside down, all told through the snarkiest omniscient narrator since Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

A really powerful novel

Fates and Furies is a lyrical and, at times, astonishingly beautiful account of how little it is possible to know about those closest to us

[An] edgy symphony.

[An] ingenious novel…buttressed by real emotional power.

There are two sides to every story and the author delivers both of them with brilliant authenticity. A must read.

My favourite book of 2015 was Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies (although I’m sure lots of people will pick this one!). I was given it by a friend and devoured it in two days. I felt as though I could have gone on reading it forever.

Fascinating...a joy to read.

A truly brilliant book which I completely fell in love with.

A forensic dissection of marriage, lyrically told.

About five extraordinary women in 1920s Kentucky, who worked on horseback as travelling librarians

An enthralling read based on a true story

One to get lost in. Escape with this book and follow the story of five women who are embarking on a powerful journey - and refuse to obey any man's commands!

A brand-new page-turner . . . based on a true story and tracks five feisty women living in America during the Great Depression

Jojo Moyes is back with this tale based on the real-life horseback librarians of Kentucky

Took me to the mountains of depression-era Kentucky where brave women librarians risked all to deliver books on horseback

Celebrates the world of books . . . A fictional yarn about a quintet of extraordinary intrepid women from disparate backgrounds

From the very first page, I was drawn into the world and the characters that Jojo Moyes has so carefully created

A fabulous adventure story

Praise for Jojo Moyes

Moyes somehow manages to break your heart before restoring your faith in love

Raw, funny, real and sad, this is storytelling at its best

Immensely readable and enjoyable

This truly beautiful story made us laugh, smile and sob like a baby - you simply have to read it

Wonderfully written and completely engrossing, with exquisitely drawn characters in a brilliantly plotted narrative

A heart-stopping read. Destined to be the novel that friends press upon each other

Britain's best contemporary female author

The storytelling treads the delicate balance between heartbreak and hope perfectly

A triumph

A tender, funny and hopeful look at love, grief and life. Bumper box of tissues required

Joyful, with a pitch-perfect ending

Julia Whelan is perfect as Alice Wright

Concentrates on sisterhood and friendship

A sweeping story of female friendship with a dash of romance, set in 1930s Kentucky

Her writing is beautiful and whimsical with unique storylines

This most recent book of Jojo's is her best . . . I loved this adventure story for girls for its plucky female characters and wonderful writing