<b>Its portrayal of the tightening vice of alcohol addiction is unparalleled.</b> But its profound exploration of its love, companionship, faith, work and our search for meaning in life made it <b>a tender masterpiece, and one of the year’s essential reads.</b>
- Justine Jordan, Guardian, **Books of the Year**
<b>MacLaverty doesn’t publish novels very often but when he does they are outstanding.</b>
- Peter Kemp, Sunday Times, **Books of the Year**
<b>A gem of a novel.</b>
- Allan Hunter, Herald Scotland, **Books of the Year**
Alive with utterly convincing actuality, this affecting, funny and acute book is <b>a triumph of quiet masterliness.</b>
- Peter Kemp, Herald Scotland, **Books of the Year**
It's <b>an immersive and astonishing book.</b>
- Jackie Kay, Herald Scotland, **Books of the Year**
[An] <b>intense, emotionally vivid</b> portrait of an elderly couple’s relationship in crisis.
- James Marriott, The Times, **Books of the Year**
A marriage under strain after 40 years? A mini-break marred by bitter cold weather? An escapist dream that’s about to be nixed by reality? Gloomy though it sounds, <b>this warm, intimate portrait of ageing love is one of the wittiest, wisest novels of the year.</b>
Mail on Sunday, **Books of the Year**
<i>Midwinter Break</i> is <b>a work of extraordinary emotional precision and sympathy</b>, about coming to terms - to an honest reckoning - with love and the loss of love, with memory and pain. Full of scenes that are <b>rendered with exquisite accuracy and care</b>, allowing the most detailed physical descriptions to be placed against the possibility of a rich spiritual life, <b>this is a novel of great ambition by an artist at the height of his powers</b>.
- Colm Tóibín,
A quiet, brilliantly written novel that <b>packs a tremendous punch.</b>
- Penelope Lively,
An artist with a subtle feel for the ordinary, MacLaverty’s wry, <b>outstanding</b> novel about the tests that time, age and life impose on love <b>resonates with humanity and emotional intelligence</b>.
- Eileen Battersby, Financial Times