'Alive in the Merciful Country is an ambitious novel that asks potent questions about abuses of state and personal power … combines a beadily bleak eye with a standup’s comic timing and a profound humanity that breaks open the heart.'
- Guardian,
'Prose that soars and swoops like the birds she references … [Kennedy] spins pain into poetry and its glitter is authentic.'
- The Spectator,
'Alive In The Merciful Country asks important questions about the nature of justice and mercy.'
- The Scotsman,
'An adventurous, often brilliant novelist … a wide-reaching, structurally playful novel.'
- Daily Mail,
'... provocative, thoughtful and mysterious novel'
- The Observer,
'… it’s a page turner with all the elegance of literary fiction.'
- Meath Chronicle 2025 books preview,