A stunning exploration of the dark side of tradition, the toxicity of male privilege, and dangerous effects of rape culture...an extraordinary novel

Tradition is a deeply felt, powerful, devastating and, ultimately, hopeful look at toxic rape culture and its destructive effects.

Powerful and necessary, Brendan Kiely bravely takes on class, privilege, and injustice in this layered, authentic story about friendship and finding the courage to stand up for what is right-Tradition is an important, timely book that will empower young men to rise up against misogyny and rape culture.

Tradition is a startling portrait of privilege and rape culture, but it is also ultimately a book about resistance and hope, the power of friendship to embolden our integrity, and the courage to do the right thing even when everyone else seems to be doing wrong

Tradition is a stunning, timely, and deeply poignant novel about the culture of sexual violence. Sure to spark necessary conversations, this is 2018's must-read young adult novel.

Tradition isn't so much a book as it is an invitation and a promise. An invitation to stand up for ourselves and for what's right, and a promise that if we stand, we won't do so alone. Beautifully written with Brendan's wit and compassion, this book is a must read for all those hopeful for a better world.

Brendan Kiely's Tradition is a searing literary call-to-arms in the most powerful and just sense: it takes a sledgehammer to our rotten, dangerous, and deeply ingrained traditions, so that we can build something new and beautiful in their place.

Kiely bravely explores rape culture and how it intersects with class and privilege... readers will find themselves rooting for the world not as it is, but as it might yet be.

Right from the start this book draws you in with its evocative imagery and beautifully-described landscapes . . . in A Gathering of Ravens the line between fantasy and historical fiction is blurred into mythology. If you like your fantasy Tolkien-esque with deep roots, then this novel is for you, and like many legends in truth, it is not exactly a story of justice or redemption, but it is a tale that must play itself out to its very end, a tale you cannot help but get drawn into.

I loved the prose and for me, the action sequences really brought the brutality to life . . . add to this some wonderful twists . . . a kick-ass plot . . . I was a more than happy reader. Top notch.

An amazing work of fantasy with a very real touch of both humanity and the weight of history. Oden has populated his strange world with witches, monsters, Vikings, warriors, cowards and everything in between. Deft and well written.

Oden taps the dark roots of 'the Northern thing'...mixing Norse history and mythology with fantasy and a relentless narrative drive . . . will appeal to the Grimdark crowd as well as fans of Robert E. Howard and Poul Anderson.

Masterful storytelling . . . superb writing . . . magical and lively . . . a must-read for historical fantasy lovers.

Narrated with the precise realism that we have come to expect of Neel Mukherjee’s novels… A State of Freedom resonates with intricate and disturbing echoes… Mukherjee has created an India that is always graspable and always elusive

In Mukherjee’s hands familiar fare is elevated by his empathy for the poor and the journalistic efforts he undertakes to understand them… his best work yet… This bleak and entirely justified vision of modern India is what binds together Mukherjee’s stories and indeed his oeuvre

A compelling read set in contemporary India that explores the attempts of five characters, each in different circumstances, to exchange the life they are leading for something better

A brilliant novel, deeply compassionate and painterly, reminding me of Howard Hodgkin’s paintings. Mukherjee brings to life the colours and sounds of a place where modern life is constantly crashing against tradition

Bleak and beautifully written

Mukherjee’s characters are so well drawn and their plights so affecting that we stop quibbling over how to categorise the book and simply lose ourselves in masterful storytelling… Random bouts of cruelty… unfold in electrifying prose

Very powerful, very well written

A thing of wonder… does what a great novel should do… one of the most wonderful novels I’ve read for ages and ages… such wonderful high calibre writing’

Brilliant… I couldn’t put it down…everything about it rang true… so gripping, so thrilling

A splendidly rich and affirmative novel

An especially searing account of state oppression and Communist terror… everything is held together by Mukherjee’s wonderfully inventive prose style

An exceptional portrait of modern India – and one of the best novels this year

Mukherjee confronts us with the deranged performances of both master and slave… A State of Freedom’s artfully handled piecing together of story fragments is held in tension by a counterforce of textual disintegration

This novel paints a vivid picture of modern India, its beauty and its benightedness, examining the relationship between identity and migration. Mukherjee is pitch-perfect in his descriptions of Indian life and unsparing in chronicling the poverty, deprivation and superstition that blights the nation. The book’s themes are important and the writing powerful, in places shocking

Harsh and vibrant… Mukherjee’s deep knowledge of India and the West, allied to his never-failing curiosity about the ties that both bind us and separate us, makes him an outstanding chronicler of Bengali life, seen from within and without… In an age when so many fiction writers flimflam around in a cloud of unknowing, Mukherjee has an eagle’s eye for the truth

It’s a brave and frequently devastating novel whose themes of displacement and dehumanisation are all too timely

The last book that made my heart race? That’d be Neel Mukherjee’s A State of Freedom: completely propulsive and horrifying and astonishing

A powerful novel about alienation and the illusion of freedom.

Stories of displacement, alienation and inequality add up to dynamic, life-affirming symphony – albeit one punctuated with discordant and unsettling notes.

Mukherjee confronts head-on the appalling deprivation and the caste stigma that bedevil so many lives, and the result is as powerful as it is disturbing.

Mesmerising complexity and the sharpness mixed with compassion and empathy. All the stories are beautifully written… Long after I finished it I realized the characters were still with me, vivid, compelling, haunting

[Segal's] descriptions are spare and unerring; everyday family interactions are observed warmly and yet with precision

Evans' writing is like water; her sentences ebb and flow and change course, mirroring the Thames as it wends its way in and around the characters' lives

A masterpiece of modern living

An amazing book full of wisdom and empathy

An immersive look into friendship, parenthood, sex, and grief - as well as the fragility of love. It is told with such detail, you're left wanting more

Beautifully written and observed

Evans is extraordinarily good on the minutiae of grief, family, and the fragility of love

a lyrical portrait of modern London