Imaginative, beautifully told... Billy O'Callaghan arranges the story superbly

As the moving story unspools, O'Callaghan proves himself the most engaging of storytellers

The Paper Man is Billy O'Callaghan's most ambitious work to date, and it fulfils its ambitions magnificently. Exciting, moving, perceptive and wonderfully entertaining

A beautiful, layered novel about love, football and family. As the world falls apart in its darkest hours, this story tells of a life so bright, it echoes on into the generations: so that even in tragedy, there is always hope

Gorgeous. Billy O'Callaghan writes with such a spirit of warmth about the darkest of subjects

Billy O'Callaghan's writing is powerfully emotional and wholly captivating from page one. The Paper Man is the best book yet by a truly gifted Irish writer

History’s inherited burden presses firmly on the characters in Billy O’Callaghan’s The Paper Man... O’Callaghan moves his narrative deftly between the Vienna of the Anschluss, rural Austria before the Nazi takeover and early 1980s Ireland

Alice Winn's propulsive, visceral and heartrending debut takes an all-too-familiar setting and brilliantly reframes it via a feverish gay love story . . . Winn skillfully uses the school as a microcosm, making us feel the loss of each boy, each friend, each brother . . . but what keeps you turning the page is the tender central romance . . . I can't remember the last time I was this invested in a love story - all the while seeing our darkest history brought wrenchingly to life

Alice Winn's devastating debut will smash your heart to smithereens . . . as thousands of young men die in the most horrific of ways, Gaunt and Ellwood attempt to survive the slaughter and keep their love alive

First love, class, male camaraderie and the horrors of the war are all explored in this quietly heartbreaking epic with the unforgettable appeal of Birdsong

Glorious, addictive . . . Winn's prose is percussive . . . I couldn't put it down . . . Winn's exquisite pacing lives in her syntax as much as her plot, giving vim and vigor to every line

With accolades from Maggie O'Farrell and Elizabeth Day, In Memoriam is one of those debut novels so accomplished that is has made the literary world sit up and stand to attention . . . In Memoriam is gripping, tender, immersive and, most of all, completely unforgettable

The horrors of life in the trenches are described in stomach-turning details . . . there is an ease to Winn's writing, though, a zippy confidence, unusual for a debut, that allows her to skip across Europe, taking in famous battles, prisoner of war camps and hospitals, and a few trips home to mother to boost . . . [a] genuine page-turner

I'm obsessed . . . Winn writes with extraordinary power about trench warfare, taking us right into the heart of the terribly futility of this militarised massacre. She tackles class, love, innocence and masculinity with devastating insight and tenderness. I can't actually believe it's a debut . . . please rush out and buy it

In Memoriam is both brutal and beautiful; the kind of rich and atmospheric and devastating story that you spend days recovering from. Anyone who loved Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong or Ian McEwan's Atonement as much as I did needs to read this book

Winn's accomplished debut presents two indelible characters - athletic Henry Gaunt and lyrical Sidney Ellwood, English boarding school chums who both believe their love for each other is unrequited. Whether they're posturing schoolboys on the cusp of World War I or enduring the visceral shock and horrifying randomness of death in the trenches, Gaunt and Ellwood are unceasingly drawn to each other, each afraid to risk following his heart until it may be too late.

IN MEMORIAM is a gripping and unsentimental love story that brings the First World War to life in a vividly new way. Alice Winn is a truly skilful writer, depicting her main characters, Gaunt and Ellwood, and the many layers of their relationship, beautifully, with real care and insight. She is unsparing in her depiction of the conflict in which they find themselves - powerfully evoking both the horrors of trench warfare and the devastating impact it had on those involved. She also brilliantly explores how the English public school system, with its casual brutalities and glorification of battle, was irrevocably intertwined with the war. An unforgettable novel, one I stayed up all night to finish, with characters I loved almost as much as they loved each other. . . Birdsong for a new generation

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

Funny, poignant and beautifully observed

Straub writes beautifully and amusingly . . . hard to beat for sheer charm and gentle wit

Smart and entertaining

Hugely talented . . . intelligent holiday reading

Warm and big-hearted . . . leaves you smiling for days

Straub writes with such verve and sympathetic understanding of her characters . . . Reading this novel has all the pleasures of reading one of Anne Tyler's compelling family portraits

It's the beautifully drawn, vibrant characters that make this smart, compelling novel so irresistible

A funny and insightful look at love and relationships

A smart, cool sensibility

Lovely, satisfying

Smart and fresh, offering new insights into the lives of people all around us

Thoughtful and hilarious

It would be easy to compare Straub to other masters of the genre like Meg Wolitzer or Jennifer Egan, but she's already a master in her own right

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