- Published: 15 January 2014
- ISBN: 9780099575245
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $26.99
First Novel
- Published: 15 January 2014
- ISBN: 9780099575245
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $26.99
Ingeniously twisted… expertly draws us into the unpredictable labyrinth of the protagonist’s mind, and is seldom less than grimly compelling… Exerts a pleasingly icy grip
Trevor Lewis, Sunday Times
Hugely impressive and entertaining
Anthony Cummins, Sunday Telegraph
An intricate story with an unsettlingly noirish effect
Lucy Scholes, Observer
Dead clever and occasionally macabre… Intricately plotted, proper wince-inducing stuff… A cutting-edge, vital new British novel for now
Stuart Hammond, Dazed & Confused
If writing about creative writing is to risk a novel eating itself, we can be thankful that a writer of Royle’s skills put himself in charge of the banquet
Gerard Woodward, Guardian
Blurs fact and fiction with aplomb… Royle’s novel is a sharp portrait of a man going very wrong.
Ben Felsenburg, Metro
Extremely good.
John Burnside, The Times
This may be a tricksily metafictional novel but Royle hasn’t forgotten his readers.
Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail
Royle’s coup is to deliver the pithy sting of a good short story many times over the course of a whole novel.
Claire Lowdon, New Statesmen
I admired it so much and wanted to go back and see how it was all put together. His book absolutely enchanted me.
Jenn Ashworth, Independent
5 stars, gripping, innovative and fluent.
Bookmebookblog
Nicholas Royle has produced the holy grail: a literary page-turner. Although it’s published in January, I’ll be astonished if it doesn’t make the short list of many a prize at the end of the year.
Bookmunch
A strange, unsettling brew that simply entertains at first before revealing darker and more dangerous depths as it progresses; a dark and delicious treat for lovers of literary fiction who like to have their grey cells tickled.
Justwilliamsluck
Only a man with prodigious talent, not to mention a capacity for multi-tasking, would even attempt a book of such monumental ambition… Far too good to be a debut. Which, of course, it isn’t.This is a novel that demands to be read more than once.
Gavin James Bower, Independent
This is a finely honed work of sophisticated gaming that flirts with truth; yet it never forgets that it's also a plot-driven fiction
Philip Womack, Daily Telegraph
Dazzling… Royle attended last year’s Man Booker Prize ceremony as editor of one of the shortlisted titles, Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse… I wouldn’t bet against Royle having to dry-clean the tux on his own account next time.
Anthony Cummins, Sunday Telegraph
I began by simply enjoying the novel and ended up being thrilled, horrified, disturbed. First Novel is absolutely at the forefront of everything I’ve read in British fiction over the last couple of years.
Jonathan Coe
Highly recommended… First Novel is a clever book, but as well as having brains it has guts: it begins slowly but soon acquires the characteristics of a thriller, and the ending is a revelation
Simon Baker, Spectator
A crafty puzzler that folds the Shipman murders into the tale of a no-mark writing tutor with a fetish for car sex under the Manchester flight path.
Anthony Cummins, Evening Standard
A vertiginous murder mystery with echoes of JG Ballard, David Lodge and Alain Robbe-Grillet
Sunday Telegraph
If writing about creative writing is to risk a novel eating itself, we can be thankful that a writer of Royle's skills put himself in charge of the banquet
Gerard Woodward, Guardian
A brilliant, eerie mix of campus meta-novel, whodunnit, failed-love story and existential contemplation
Peter J. Smith, Times Higher Education
This just might be the exceptional book which should be judged by its cover
Liam Heylin, Irish Examiner
An ingenious tale
Observer
Cleverly metafictional, humorously perverse, and impressively original
Courtney Garner, Yorker