<b>Sublime… <i>Wild Houses</i> is a thrillingly moreish novel</b> with some of the sharpest dialogue I’ve read in any recent debut and characters who <b>held me captive until the very last page</b>
Sunday Times
A delicate and beautiful book about the lives of lonely people... <b>Page after faultless page, <i>Wild Houses</i> is a sheer joy to read... Colin Barrett's the real deal, but then we knew that already</b>
Irish Times
So consistently witty and inventive that <b>one struggles to think of recent novels that could stand up to comparison</b>
Guardian, *Book of the Day*
With a thrillerish intensity… Barrett expertly handles the combination of narrative-driving dialogue, exhilarating action scenes and quieter moments designed to build tension…<b> I was unable to put <i>Wild Houses </i>down</b>
Times Literary Supplement
After years of short stories, <b>Barrett’s transition to the longer span of the novel is confidently done.</b> Descriptive set pieces are linked and expanded, yet every paragraph is created with care
Financial Times
You’ll love Colin Barrett’s debut novel… <b>Barrett has a keen ear for the absurd that held me captive until the very last page</b>
Sunday Times
With two collections behind him, Barrett is well established as a master both of the short story and the sentence; his debut novel confirms and extends all his promise. <b><i>Wild Houses</i> is a propulsive, darkly comic and superlatively written account of frustration and misadventure in a small Irish town</b>... The connections between the cast and the past tragedies that have forged them are expertly revealed in a slow-burn study of character and fate that’s also an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Violence and farce mingle in <b>a novel that feels as sharp, funny and bitingly bittersweet as life</b>
- Booker Judges, 2024,
Barrett’s <b>superb debut novel</b> deepens the world of his two short-story collections… The novel <b>has the tension of a gritty noir thriller and the comic menace of a Pinter play</b>
New Statesman
Barrett can sustain a narrative across a novel without sacrificing the panache and precision that has made him<b> </b><b>one of the most stylish fiction writers at work today. His prose is a delight from the first page</b>
i
<b><i>Wild Houses </i>realises life in full and without pity</b>... A palpable sense of human eccentricity, and endurance, is always there, just beneath the surface
Daily Telegraph