<b>A smart, readable and sharply contemporary debut</b>, full of awkward family lunches and drunken weddings, darting between Camberwell flats, Soho bars and late-night Ubers
The Times and Sunday Times Best Books of 2022
<b>What sets <i>At the Table</i></b><b> apart is Powell's acute understanding not just of how we interact in the modern world...but the eternals of the human comed</b>y: how people fool themselves, make excuses, get it wrong and keep trying anyway
- John Self, The Times
<b>Powell is a fantastic writer who exercises perfect control</b>. Every detail is forensically, sympathetically observed, and while there's a lot that's tragic, it's often very close to comedy
- Wendy Holden, Daily Mail
The story's centre is Nicole - a spiky and charismatic woman struggling to get her life in order . . . Like Waller-Bridge's Fleabag and Rooney's Marianne, Nicole is her own woman: a complex and satisfying presence.<b> <i>At the Table </i>is rich with delights</b>
- Erica Wagner, Harper's Bazaar
<b>Filled with razor-sharp dialogue and psychological acuity, <i>At the Table </i>is an astute debut novel</b> about dysfunctional family life
- Hannah Beckerman, Observer
I have rarely seen the relationship between parents and their grown-up children so deftly exposed. <b>I sat, at the end of it, startled, close to tears.</b> It made me want to call my mother immediately
- Sophie Heawood,
Claire Powell's great skill is to reveal to the reader what her characters struggle to realize themselves . . . Its themes are unremarkable - love, self-knowledge, the feeling everyone else is living while you are standing still . . . yet <b>almost everything in it feels true</b>
- Claire Allfree, Metro
<b><i>At The Table</i> is an assured, exquisitely drawn novel that fans of <i>Sorrow And Bliss</i> will adore</b>
- Sarra Manning, Red magazine (online)
<b>Well-written, witty family drama</b>
Good Housekeeping
<b>A beautifully-written novel </b>about what keeps a family together and what tears it apart
- Lissa Evans,
<i>At the Table</i> is <b>a hugely intelligent, emotionally astute novel </b>about family dynamics, and Claire Powell is an incredible new talent
- Marian Keyes,
<b>Painfully funny, acutely well-observed, powerfully resonant in its humanity and emotional accuracy</b>. I missed this book whenever I wasn't reading it
- Luke Kennard,
<b>A lovely novel.</b> I adored the precision with which these people are seen, and the exactness of the social setting. <b>I found myself absorbed in them, caring about them, wanting them to do the right thing</b>, and I was very sorry to leave them. It's a novel Elizabeth Taylor wouldn't wouldn't have minded writing, and there aren't enough of those around
- Philip Hensher,
I loved this novel about a family. Each chapter has a meal (or drink, lots of drinks) and <b>Claire Powell's writing and characters are funny and heartbreaking and moreish</b>. I'm jealous of anyone who hasn't read it yet
- Flynn Berry, author of Northern Spy,
Brilliantly clever and funny and sad
- India Knight,