Search results for ""Megan Hunter" "The Harpy""

Book Synopsis‘Brilliant . . . A deeply unsettling, excellent read’ - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under 'A potent contemporary fable . . . riveting' - Guardian‘Genuinely thrilling . . . one long beautiful scream’ - Evie WyldLucy lives with her husband Jake and their two boys. Her life is devoted to her children, her days mapped out by their finely tuned routine.Until a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband. He thought she should know.Lucy is distraught. She decides to stay with Jake, if only for the children’s sake, but in order to even the score, they agree that she will hurt him three times. Jake will not know when the hurt is coming, or what form it will take. And so begins a delicate game of crime and punishment, from which there is no return . . .Told in dazzling, musical prose, The Harpy by Megan Hunter is a dark, staggering fairy tale, at once mythical and otherworldly and fiercely contemporary. It is a novel of love, marriage and its failures, of power and revenge, of metamorphosis and renewal.‘Utterly compelling . . . precise and darkly truthful’ Esther Freud Trade ReviewThe Harpy is brilliant. Hunter imbues the everyday with apocalyptic unease. A deeply unsettling, excellent read. -- Daisy Johnson, Booker shortlisted author of Everything UnderIn The Harpy, Hunter has articulated female rage in a way that lives on in your bones and in your gut. A genuinely thrilling read, one long beautiful scream. -- Evie WyldMegan Hunter’s potent contemporary fable about the enduring taboo of female fury becomes especially relevant. Every bit as riveting as her debut The End We Start From . . . the ensuing drama blends mythic motifs with pointed swipes at modern motherhood’s double binds. * Guardian *The Harpy is an almost perfect book. The premise is so simple, and the execution so flawless . . . I've talked about it more than anything else I've read so far this year: I love explaining the set-up to friends and watching their eyes widen. It's so dark and so much fun. -- Kristen Roupenian, author of Cat PersonHunter writes viscerally and incisively about the taboos of female desire and rage . . . [a] striking, pared-down modern myth * Daily Mail *A fiery tale of infidelity . . . she manages to elevate her story to something that is at once rooted in the everyday and effortlessly transcends it . . . a gripping, psychologically astute account of a relationship in free-fall * Scotsman *Sentence after sentence made my skin bump. Not just with what the sentence said, but because the writing was so very, very good. It's a brilliant piece of work. -- Cynan Jones, author of CoveUtterly compelling . . . so precise and darkly truthful. I thought it succeeding in illuminating - with flair and originality - the damage done by betrayal. -- Esther FreudI was utterly spellbound. Her dark humour and pointillist prose puts her in league with Lydia Davis and Jenny Offil, masterfully rendering the emotional shock of a protagonist finding her life has become story. -- Olivia Sudjic, author of SympathyA sharp, timely and darkly funny novel about maternal love and sacrifice, and the incandescent rage that festers beneath it. Hunter's writing is beautiful and spare, uncanny and hilarious. I utterly loved it. -- Luiza Sauma, author of Flesh and Bone and WaterA beautifully written, viscerally disturbing novel that turns the narrative of the cheated-on wife on its head -- Laura Kaye, author of English AnimalsMegan Hunter effortlessly compels us to feel both heartbreak and the momentary gratification of revenge . . . devastating in its evocation of the expense and sometimes fatal strain of passion, grief, and rage.’ -- Susanna Moore, author of In the CutThe Harpy is a taut and lyrical novel about cosily calibrated lives coming spectacularly undone. Compulsively absorbing yet otherworldly, both a fever dream and a gorgeous and alarming howl of rage. -- Sharlene Teo, author of PontiIn hungry, restless prose, Megan Hunter tears apart the seam between motherhood and the monstrous. She confronts the fear of female anger and asks us what happens when pain that has been swallowed through generations begins to rush to the surface. -- Jessica Andrews, author of SaltwaterOn one level it is the psychological excavation of a suburban marriage on the rocks, on another, a spell to summon primeval feminine power. Above all, it is prose informed by poetry . . . a brilliant and eviscerating work of literary fiction * Review 31 *With shades of Carmen Maria Machado and Karen Russell, Hunter turns in an unforgettable magical realist story of power, revenge, and transformation. * Esquire *A blisteringly tense, brilliant book about adultery, betrayal, motherhood and revenge -- Amanda Craig

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Book SynopsisMegan Hunter is a prize-winning novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The End We Start From, was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Books Are My Bag Awards, longlisted for the Aspen Words Prize, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Awards finalist and won the Foreword Reviews Editor's Choice Award. It was adapted into a major motion picture by Alice Birch, starring Jodie Comer and directed by Mahalia Belo. Her second novel, The Harpy, was Indie Book of the Month; she is currently adapting it for television with Red Planet Pictures. In 2024 her dramatic monologue Salt of the Earth premiered at Venice Film Festival. Megan's other writing has appeared in the White Review, the TLS, Literary Hub, Vogue, Elle, BOMB, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, UK.

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Book SynopsisMegan Hunter is a prize-winning novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The End We Start From (2017), was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Books Are My Bag Awards, longlisted for the Aspen Words Prize, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Awards finalist and won the Foreword Reviews Editor's Choice Award. It was adapted into a major motion picture by Alice Birch, starring Jodie Comer and directed by Mahalia Belo. Her second novel, The Harpy (2020), was Indie Book of the Month; she is currently adapting it for television with Red Planet Pictures. In 2024 her dramatic monologue Salt of the Earth premiered at Venice Film Festival. Megan's other writing has appeared in the White Review, the TLS, Literary Hub, Vogue, Elle, BOMB, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, UK.

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Book SynopsisAn astonishing debut novel of motherhood and loss in the dying days of the Second World War 'Moving, graceful... Violets has a compelling, quiet power all the way to its exquisitely affecting end' Megan Hunter, author of The Harpy and The End We Start From 'Stunning and original... Written in pristine prose, it reminded me of the possibilities of language' Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory A young woman, Violet, lies in a hospital bed in the closing days of World War Two. Her pregnancy is over and she is no longer able to conceive. With her husband deployed in Burma and her friends caught up in transitory love affairs, she must find a way to put herself back together. In a small, watchful town in the Welsh valleys, another Violet contemplates the fate she shares with her unborn child. Unwed, an overseas posting offers a temporary way out. Plunged into the heat and disorder of Naples, her body begins to reveal the responsibility it carries even as she is drawn into the burnished circle of a charismatic new friend, Maggie. Between these two Violets, sung into being like a babe in a nursery rhyme: a son. As their lives begin to intertwine, a spellbinding story of women's courage emerges, suffused with power, lyricism and beauty, from an exhilarating new voice in British fiction. 'Beautiful, inventive and deeply moving' Liz Berry 'A novel of taut symmetry and dissonance... Alex Hyde's prose is rhythmically acute and emotionally layered. This is a subtle and daring book' Margo JeffersonTrade ReviewHypnotic... its accumulative power will have you sobbing by the end * Evening Standard *I loved this moving, graceful novel, which writes through the years with a rare deftness of touch. Violets has a compelling, quiet power all the way to its exquisitely affecting end -- Megan Hunter, author of The HarpyGraceful... inventive... Babies - unborn, unwanted, mourned, impossible to conceive - link both Violets in a narrative that is skilfully progressed over the course of this quietly surprising book * The Irish Times *[An] assured debut... Hyde's ingenious plotting is matched by the inventiveness of her buoyant, verse-like, subtly rhyming prose -- Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail *Short, expressionist... profound... * Financial Times *A tender meditation on motherhood...lyrical ... Hyde has found a way to make the past speak presciently to our times while also maintaining a playful relationship to a story that becomes unexpectedly moving, warm-hearted despite its flinty poetic prose -- Lara Feigel * Guardian *I was deeply moved by Violets, a stunning and original portrayal of womanhood and life's many iterations. Written in pristine prose, it reminded me of the possibilities of language, of the beauty, heartbreak and extraordinary courage found in everyday life -- Elizabeth MacnealAn intricately composed and thoroughly corporeal portrait of the intertwined lives of two women during the war. Hyde is clearly a writer of talent and ambition: Violets suggests a glittering career ahead -- Alex Preston * Observer *[W]onderfully lyrical and insightful * i Newsletter *One of the most beautiful, haunting, heart breaking and hopeful books I have read in quite some time. It is a book that made my cry, frankly... I have experienced nothing like the main characters in these pages...I couldn't put it down -- A ‘New Favourite Book’ by Simon SavidgeViolets is a touching tribute, deftly written, to all women left struggling in similar situations -- Susie Mesure * Spectator *A beautiful, inventive, and deeply moving book about the secrets and sacrifices women make on their journeys to motherhood. Through lucid, lyrical prose, unafraid of the body and all its messiness and longing, the stories of these two courageous Violets, conjuring a child into being in the last days of wartime, captured my heart and imagination. -- Liz BerryViolets is a novel of taut symmetry and dissonance. War, marriage, affairs, death, childbirth: all are here, dissolving the gender divisions we still impose on these subjects. Alex Hyde's prose is rhythmically acute and emotionally layered. This is a subtle and daring book. -- Margo JeffersonLoosely based on the adoption of the author's father, this lyrical, affecting début weaves together the stories of the two women involved...In stripped-back prose that focuses on the women's interior lives, this notable début is one for fans of Max Porter and Megan Hunter. -- Alice O'Keeffe, Editor's Choice * Bookseller *A story of motherhood and loss told in lean, spare prose * Bookseller *Breathtaking... powerful and poignant * Sunday Post *A brilliantly constructed novel that says more by saying less... the poetic heartbeat of the narrative means that this is very much more than a partially fictionalised family memoir -- Bill Borrows * Radio Times *A thoroughly humane, intimate, even celebratory novel... Its interwoven form and sympathetic tone, insists on connection * TLS *

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Book Synopsis‘A sublime gift’ MEG MASONA taut, ground-breaking new novel about a writer's relationship with her larger-than-life mother - and about the very nature of writing.Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book walks across London on a quiet Sunday. The city was a favourite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself recalling all that made her complicated mother extraordinary. Even though the woman, a writer, wants to respect her mother’s nearly pathological sense of privacy, she must decide whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal.* A New Yorker, Time, Washington Post, Oprah Daily and NPR Book of the Year *‘I absolutely loved it. A moving portrayal of daughterhood…suffused with warmth and love’ MEGAN HUNTER, author of The Harpy‘Confirms McCracken as among the finest contemporary chroniclers of everyday life… wonderful’ GUARDIAN‘Tender, funny, heartbreaking… a writer who always delights’ RUMAAN ALAM, author of Leave the World BehindTrade ReviewInto a single, most singular novel, McCracken fits everything we adult daughters know and feel and love and fear about our beautiful, complicated mothers, and could never say. A sublime gift. -- Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and BlissWhat could be better value than a book set over one day that you can read in one day, but that will stay in your heart and refuse to go... One of the greatest memoirs of a parent. * The Times *Confirms McCracken as among the finest contemporary chroniclers of everyday life. Like Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett, she combines a blistering intelligence with deep humanity. * Guardian *Easily one of the best novels (or is it actually a memoir?) that will be published this year... It is touching and funny, and full of sharp-eyed observations about family life and parents and how your childhood forms you. * The Times *A more loving and moving tribute to its subject is hard to imagine. * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisIn a well-appointed examination in London, a young woman unburdens herself to a certain Dr Seligman. Though she can barely see above his head, she holds forth about her life and desires, and her struggles with her sexuality and identity. Born and raised in Germany, she has been living in London for several years, determined to break free from her family origins and her haunted homeland. In a monologue that is both razor-sharp and subversively funny, she takes us on a wide-ranging journey from outre sexual fantasies and overbearing mothers to the medicinal properties of squirrel tails and the enduring legacy of shame. With The Appointment, her audacious debut novel, Katharina Volckmer challenges our notions of what is fluid and what is fixed and injects a dose of Bernhardian snark into contemporary British fiction.Trade Review‘Surprising, inventive, disturbing and beautiful – The Appointment is an overdue, radical intervention.’ — Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick‘Katharina Volckmer is a risk-taker of the first degree. Her monologue is of hypnotic, lyrical invention and wit, coruscating self-loathing, profound pessimism and fragile hope. As dark and brilliant as 'The Naked Lunch. The Appointment is also mesmerisingly beautiful.’ — Ian McEwan, author of The Cockroach‘Katharina Volckmer’s debut, The Appointment, is the most audacious novel I have read in years.[...It] is horribly funny and shockingly good; if the best writing takes a risk, this is Russian roulette.’ — Frances Wilson, TLS‘The Appointment is a wonderful first novel – at once savage and precise, hypercomical and furious. It has all the authority of true chutzpah.’ — Adam Thirlwell, author of Lurid & Cute‘The Appointment is an incredible debut; utterly compelling, its vibrant, incisive voice surprises and enlivens the reader on every page. It’s darkly hilarious, moving and original. I loved it.’ — Megan Hunter, author of The Harpy‘A book destined to enter the list of great monologues of literary history. If Dostoevsky’s underground man had read both Thomas Bernhard and Maggie Nelson, he might have conjured something as brave as this.’ — Carlos Fonseca, author of Natural History‘The Appointment is transgressive, spiky, full of ideas but astonishingly light-footed, written in beautiful, unsettling prose, and very, very funny – in short, everything a novel should be.’ — Adam Biles, author of Feeding Time‘Katharina Volckmer is a wild new talent, and unlike, say, twentieth-century Europe, The Appointment succeeds in justifying its obscenities.’ — Joshua Cohen, author of The Book of Numbers‘Audacious... hilariously funny. The prose is immaculate, she captures you, buttonholes you from the very first page... It is better than it has any right to be for a first book.’ — John Mitchinson, Backlisted

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Desmond Elliott PrizeShortlisted: Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year - Goldsmiths Prize - Betty Trask PrizeLonglisted: Booker Prize - Dylan Thomas PrizeMaps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life. Utterly heart-breaking yet darkly funny, Maddie Mortimer’s debut is a symphonic journey through one woman’s body: a celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all.‘Original, memorable, shimmering’ - Sarah Moss, author of Ghost WallLia has only one child, Iris; her magical, awkward, endlessly creative daughter who has just entered the battleground of her teenage years. Lia and Iris have always been close, but there is a war playing out inside Lia’s body, too, and everything is about to change.As she confronts what might be the end, memories of her own childhood and a passionate love affair come rushing into her present, unearthing buried secrets and her family’s deepest fears. But Lia still has hope . . . for more time, for more love, for more Iris.The Sunday Times Book of the Year'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive' - The Guardian‘Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic’ - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything, UnderTrade ReviewRemarkable . . . A tearjerker, but it's hopeful too . . . Brave, inventive and mature * Sunday Times *Here is a book to dance and sing about. An extraordinary, kaleidoscopic dive into language -- Daisy Johnson, Man Booker-shortlisted author of Everything, UnderCompelling and uplifting . . . undeniably impressive: Mortimer is clearly a talent to watch * Telegraph *An original and memorable novel written in shimmering prose. The characters stayed with me long after I’d finished reading -- Sarah Moss, Women's Prize-shortlisted author of Ghost Wall and SummerwaterBrave, inventive and mature . . . a remarkable debut * The Times, The best paperbacks of 2023 *Lyrical and beautiful, this is a novel unlike anything else * Stylist *Both expansive and intimate, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is an intricate portrait of a life hurtling towards the inevitable. An extraordinary debut. -- Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Sunday Times bestselling author of The MerciesStriking . . . formally inventive . . . Sadness is not allowed to crowd out wit and joy * New Yorker *A beautiful novel about death that feels completely alive, pulsing with tenderness and wit -- Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From and The HarpyAn extraordinary debut, unlike anything I've read. Wildly inventive, poetic and poignant, this is a rare gem of a novel that took my imagination to new places and touched my heart. -- Emma Stonex, Sunday Times bestselling author of The LamplightersTechnically dazzling . . . Mortimer has the same felicity with language as Jon McGregor, combining an incantatory prose style with imagery so acute it almost burns * Daily Mail *Ambitious, sprawling . . . brings to mind Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing . . . restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive . . . sharply funny * Guardian *It may move between different styles and moods, but underpinning it all is the book’s bursting energy and, in the face of death, its verve for life * i newspaper *This is a touching, eye-opening perspective on life and illness like you've never read before * Good Housekeeping *Using word placement, font, and shape to create images on the page, Mortimer deepens the reader’s engagement with the story and characters . . . Through breathtaking attention to detail, Mortimer crafts a stunning novel that touches on the expanses one life can contain * Booklist (starred) *Maddie Mortimer's dazzling debut novel about a woman with breast cancer is a life-affirming read - all the more so because of its proximity to death . . . While there are many books that explore these themes, it is rare to find one that does so in such an immersive and harrowing way * Straits Times *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE'Sensual, spiky, tender and utterly original' Pandora Sykes'A fierce and fascinating debut' Lily KingI was told of an older woman who was asked by her granddaughter, 'Granny, when was the happiest time of your life?''I don't know,' she replied, 'I may not have had it yet.'The stories found in this collection explore the worlds of thirteen older women, reframing their intellectual and emotional lives in intimate vignettes that will shock and comfort in equal measure. In elegant prose Jane Campbell ignites the voices of women who are fighting to live on their own terms, energised by the stuff of human living: a need for companionship, attachments to love-objects, freedoms, integrity and sense of self. Cat Brushing confronts the tragic misconceptions of ageing showing older women to be nothing less than courageous, fearless and defiant in the face of overwhelming odds.Trade ReviewCat Brushing is a fierce and fascinating debut. I loved these women who have taken off their gloves to fight life with their bare hands. -- Lily King, author of Writers & LoversI loved these fresh, wry, strange stories; by turns moving and unnerving, they disturb expectations of the longings, loves and ambitions of older women. -- Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From and The HarpyIt's not every day . . . that you encounter a debut as fresh, assured and fun as Jane Campbell's . . . Though her stories are frequently explicit enough to bring colour to your cheeks, Campbell maintains a cool, commanding tone that enhances the effect of her limpid prose . . . The stories are varied in approach without being showy about it, and consistently draw novel insight from a few major themes: aging, sexuality, memory, loneliness. Her work merits comparison with that of Edna O'Brien or Muriel Spark, while an uncanny streak running through several of the pieces . . . might bring Daphne du Maurier to mind. * New York Times *I laughed out loud in joy and admiration so many times in this original, surprising book. Cat Brushing is about aging, about sex, about the weirdness of technology, and about womanhood - these stories felt both deeply familiar to me and far too absent from many of our culture's stories. Jane Campbell is a refreshing, compelling new voice. -- Kate Reed PettyJane Campbell is a wonder! It's her clear-eyed vision, rendered in prose as crisp as bone china, that had me rapt. This book flings open a heretofore shuttered window, giving us an invigoratingly fresh and absolutely essential view of the psychology and emotions and appetites of aging women. Jane Campbell, where have you been? We've needed you for a very, very long time. -- Jamie Quatro, author of Fire SermonJane Campbell's Cat Brushing is the debut of the decade, an eighty year old woman laying out the physical and spiritual struggle of life at its very end. I was haunted by these stories of older women falling, having strokes, dying--subjects often flattened into sentimentality--but in Campbell's hands made both elegant and transgressive. We are striving creatures of intense desire, Campbell insists, until we are not. -- Darcey Steinke, author of Flash Count DiaryIn thirteen revivifying stories, thirteen candid, empathic portraits of aging women for whom desire yet smolders, Campbell proves aging is a complex sport. Some mental agility is required, some wit and wisdom. Befuddlement and remorse are a part of play, too, but the stories offer the solace of shared experience and company. -- Christine Schutt, Pure Hollywood and Other StoriesStepping into these stories by Jane Campbell feels like opening a door back into the world. The thrust of life, of longing and regret, of contempt and forgiveness, it's all here in such vivid, delicious phrasing. She reads like Eudora Welty's wicked British cousin, a lot of fun. -- John Freeman, Editor of The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short StorySensual, spiky, tender and utterly original short stories about the desire of women in their seventies and older. * Pandora Sykes *Cat Brushing offers a much-needed fresh perspective on the diverse realities of ageing. * Women's Own *An illuminating, funny and tender collection that affirms wisdom and experience as the basis for great storytelling * Sunday Business Post *Sensuous, strange and utterly original. * Sunday Independent Ireland (Book of the Year) *

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Book Synopsis'A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It's brutal—and brilliant.' - Zadie SmithWinner of the Dylan Thomas Prize Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Fiction Debut of the YearLonglisted for the Women's Prize For FictionEdie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up.And then she meets Eric, a white middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn’t already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric’s home and family.Razor-sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now.‘A book of pure fineness, exceptional.’ – Diana Evans, GuardianA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Guardian, New York Times, New Yorker, Boston Globe, Literary Hub, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Time, Good Housekeeping, InStyle, NPR, O Magazine, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, Town & Country, Wired, New Statesman, Vox, Shelf Awareness, i-D, BookPage and more.One of Barack Obama’s Favourite Books of the Year.Trade ReviewLeilani’s story of Edie, a broke 23-year-old black woman who gets involved with a wealthy older white couple, cuts to the quick of the often grim realities of being young and black in the US today. But it’s wincingly funny, too . . . Leilani’s prose mesmerises; you go with her, wherever she decides to take you . . . A remarkable portrait of the artist as a young woman. * Observer *[Leilani] is a caustic, funny and skilful storyteller, taking us deeply and convincingly inside the head of a millennial woman frantically trying to make sense of the world and her place within it. * Sunday Times *In this cutting, hot-blooded book, the entanglements that unfold are as complicated as they are heartbreaking. * New Statesman *With deadpan wit and remarkable talent, Raven Leilani effortlessly exposes the chasms between generations, faces and genders. * Vogue *A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It's brutal—and brilliant. -- Zadie Smith, author of Swing TimeLuster is entirely remarkable, and the most delicious novel I’ve read. I couldn’t get enough of Raven Leilani’s starkly accurate portrayal of the nuances of being a young woman today. -- Candice Carty-Williams, author of QueenieEvery so often, a debut novel so dazzling in its brilliance renders you unable to see the world in quite the same way for some time. Raven Leilani’s Luster illuminates the world anew, like a firework . . . it is truly a work of art. * i *A darkly funny, hilariously moving debut from a stunning new voice. Raven Leilani crafts a beautiful, bighearted story about intimacy and art that will astound and wound you. I couldn’t put this one down. -- Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing HalfI was blown away by this debut novel . . . Every sentence is a treat to read, even when it is plumbing the bleakest truths of society and humanity. It is political and emotional, tender and sharp, absurd and relatable, heartbreaking and funny. The writing is packed with sharp observations of the most eccentric human behaviour, all propelled with an addictively page-turning plot. It is exquisite. -- Dolly Alderton, author of GhostsWritten in cool prose as brittle as glass, Luster throws down the gauntlet to a politicised contemporary moment eager to see blazingly affirmative stories of black lives in literature . . . [Edie's] voice . . . is unforgettable. More novels like this please. * Daily Mail *This wild dark comedy is absolutely the real deal . . . Leilani’s live-wire sentences are a giddy joy, crafted with mischievous perfection and full of smart things to say on hot-button issues. * Mail on Sunday *You could stay in there all day, swathed in the magnificence of its language, the surprises of the sentences and their psychedelic, uncharted destinations . . . This is a book of pure fineness, exceptional. -- Diana Evans * Guardian *Raven Leilani is a writer of unusual daring, with a voice that is unique and fully formed. There is humor, intelligence, emotion, and power in her work. I cannot think of a writer better suited to capture our contemporary moment. -- Katie Kitamura, author of A SeparationLuster is ridiculously good: gorgeous, dark, and funny, with sentences that'll wreck you. I will follow this author anywhere she wants to take me. -- Carmen Maria Machado author of In the Dream HouseTension that keeps the reader hooked until the very last page . . . Leilani observes the dissatisfactions of Edie’s 21st-century life with a brutal and beautiful keenness. * Harper's Bazaar *The narrative voice of this startling novel is layered, complex, pitch-black comic, and deadly earnest, even ardent in its will to sift through the chaos and idiocy of our madhouse culture and find some glimpse of human reality. Raven Leilani has made a truly lustrous piece of art. -- Mary Gaitskill, author of This Is PleasureIf you like Normal People, you’ll love Luster . . . a squirm inducing marvel * Buzzfeed Books *Raven Leilani’s style is a truly original mix of the new and the wise, of wit and despair. She has poignantly captured the obsession that drives, and often destroys, every true artist. I adored Luster for its honesty and weird beauty. -- Sara Baume, author of Spill Simmer Falter WitherA beguiling fever dream of a novel, shot through with wistfulness, humor, and a kind of breathless, furious verve. You’ll find it impossible to put down. -- Ling Ma, author of SeveranceHilarious, honest, bursting with desire and cutting insight, Luster is absolutely captivating. I didn’t so much read it, as gulp it down. There’s so much to learn here, so much to admire. Leilani is an irreverent, impeccable stylist—a voice we need right now. -- Justin Torres, author of We the AnimalsA coming-of-age story that’s sure to keep you turning pages * Refinery29 *Spinning fresh commentary on both race and class, tensions in the house rise as Raven Leilani propels her lost protagonist on a darkly funny journey of self-discovery. * Time *Raw, racy, and utterly mesmerizing, Luster is among the most dazzling novels of the year, marking the arrival of a major new voice . . . Dreamlike, tender, and big-hearted, Luster is a must-read * Esquire *This book is luminous, glorious. From the first sentence I knew there was word-magic here and that I would read any sentence Leilani cares to write. What a marvel. -- Daisy Johnson, author of Everything UnderI adored this wry, vital, mesmeric novel. In glorious, exhilarating sentences, Leilani crafts a story that is both deeply moving and brimming with originality and insight. -- Megan Hunter, author of The HarpyLuster is a headlong carousel of a novel. With liquid prose and a painter's eye for colour, texture and light, Luster grapples vigorously with what it means to make art in a world pumping out racism-induced cortisol. -- Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting TimesLuster is as close to perfect a book as you’ll read this year. I promise you - Raven Leilani is about to become your new obsession. -- Louise O'Neill, author of Asking For ItA big, bold novel, visceral and unsettling, about a young Black woman desperate to find herself but looking in all the wrong places. * Red magazine *Brilliant in terms of voice, Luster is equally strong on plot and structure. In her leavening of cynicism with hope, Raven Leilani writes as if she were three books wise, at least. * TLS *

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