Submergence

Submergence succeeds, and is immensely pleasurable, because Ledgard's magnetic north - though incessantly insisted on - is such an uncanny, inhuman and deathly place

Toby Litt, New Statesman

An ambitious narrative that is stark, serene and contemplative...[it] achieves the ultimate goal of any writer: it makes us pause and think, and think again

Irish Times

From the icy depths of the Greenland Sea to the sweltering plains of a Somali Islamist training camp, Ledgard's masterful second novel is a beautifully crafted, rigorously researched, and deeply affecting love story

Monocle

it's the only fiction I've read in the last few years that has left me open-mouthed

David Hepworth, Word

JM Ledgard's eclectic and philosophical novel ranges far wider than this latest manifestation of the 'war on terror'... Ledgard creates a prose poem of ideas and images that hops and flits with inspiration

Metro

Writing of awesome power. In a profound meditation on cruelty, pity, belief, art, science, hope, love and mortality, the novel's truths settle in your consciousness, perhaps never to be forgotten

Independent