Black Sheep

Hill's beautiful, soulful descriptions of pit village life make this every bit as gripping as her longer spine-chilling stories

Sunday Mirror

In this taught, tense story, written with that unsparing economy which is such a feature of Hill's recent fiction, everyone longs to escape... Ted is thoughtful, compassionate, loving and misguidedly chivalrous... The sparseness of Hill's style provides the perfect medium for exploring his predicament

East Anglian Daily Times

Hill's taut prose exudes a constant darkness... you are left unsettled and haunted by the seeming inevitability of their troubled lives

Stylist

A perfectly judged story of people living hard, narrow lives

Observer

Gripping all the way to its unexpected end

Simon Baker, Spectator

Taut, tense story, written with that unsparing economy which is such a feature of Hill's recent fiction

Matthew Dennison, The Times

The versatile Hill tells a perfectly judged story of people living hard, narrow lives

Observer

So well-written, so deeply imagined, that the reader will find delight even in the encircling gloom. Love may not conquer all, but Art can

Scotsman

[Hill] does what all good writers must set out to do: she made me read until I had the answer

M J Hyland, Guardian

Powerful… Poignant, bleak and haunting, this is a small masterpiece

Sunday Mirror

Compulsively readable

Irish Examiner

Hill deploys her not inconsiderable power to weave a haunting story

Daily Mail

Beautifully, even lovingly, told

Scotsman

There is something Hardyesque in the tragic momentum of this story

Guardian

Hill’s sparse style provides the perfect medium for exploring this family’s predicament

Matthew Dennison, The TImes

Hill does a wonderful job of evoking life in this enclosed community

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

A masterpiece of economy and control

Good Book Guide