PositiveThe Herald (UK)Uncommonly timely ... Bullough offers suggestions on how to tackle the situation, such as standardising regulations across all British territories, policing financial crime at the national level and treating whistleblowers better. But underlying his righteous anger and acerbic wit there’s an underlying tone of defeat.
Doireann Ní Ghríofa
RaveThe Scotland Herald (UK)... records beautifully and movingly how her research of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill became an obsession as she found more and more to identify with and found their two voices blending into one. Beginning and ending with the words \'This is a female text\', it’s a deeply personal memoir: a journey of self-discovery which becomes a unique and extraordinary paean to motherhood as well as a lament for all the female voices suppressed and erased down the centuries.
Kiran Millwood Hargrave
RaveThe Herald (UK)Character is one of Hargrave’s strengths, and one of the novel’s most satisfying aspects is watching Maren and Ursa develop as the situation around them grows ever more dire and threatening ... Passionate, stirring and conveying a terrifying atmosphere of claustrophobic oppression, Hargrave’s gripping tale of courageous women facing overwhelming odds is helped along no end by the vividness of her bleak island location and her depiction of the dynamics of a God-fearing fishing village as opposing factions struggle for control.
Claire McGlasson
RaveThe Herald (UK)The Rapture spins a hugely engaging story ... McGlasson enthrals in this powerful, page-turning novel in which a spiritual community is brought down to earth by secrecy and worldly power games, while the most transcendent moments are to be found in ambiguous, dreamlike passages of forbidden sensuality.
Christy Lefteri
RaveThe Scotland HeraldDrawing on her experience in the field, Lefteri writes vividly and convincingly about the trials endured by refugees ... The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a relevant, timely book, but impresses most as a compassionate and truthful character study. It’s a remarkable account of the dislocation endured by displaced persons across the world, an important and necessary novel that humanizes the dispossessed who are all too often demonized.
A.L. Kennedy
RaveThe Scotland HeraldHas a timelessness to it, the stately grace and emotional directness of a classic fable. ... Kennedy has woven some lovely ideas into a celebration of love and a plea for compassion of which she can be justly proud. Written with a childlike sense of wonder and fairness but a grown-up’s understanding of the harsh lives endured by the less fortunate, The Little Snake enchants and touches deeply, ensuring that only the hardest-hearted will be left with dry eyes by the final page.
