This is it. This is the real thing. This is whatever I mean by the work of a born writer … The novel is comic, and wry, and elegiac, and shrewd and thoughtful all at once. Please read it'

A. S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph on In the Place of Fallen Leaves

Too subtle to be sentimental, too well written to be obvious. The author is a gifted storyteller, steeped in country lore and the beauty of ordinary events. Like Thomas Hardy whose kindred spirit quietly animates these pages, he is concerned with the dignity of work, the force of destiny and the consequences of human passion

New York Times Book Review

Highly atmospheric … It has an intoxicating, magical quality which completely beguiled me

Jeremy Paxman, Independent

The writing is so genuine. Nothing is posturing or romanticised … There's so much talent here

Barbara Trapido

An unusually well-made novel which, through being less English than one would expect, produces a very English kind of magic

Giles Foden, Independent on Sunday

Refreshing … even revelatory … A work that is dense with detail and richly evocative … A very impressive performance

Jane Smiley