Mischief Acts

Reviews / Votes

Weaving together prose and poetry, myth and history, the past, present and future, it's a work of extraordinary ambition, brilliantly realised * OBSERVER * A dark-dazzling archive of enchantments, pursuit, and desire -- ELEY WILLIAMS Inventive and subversive ... A mesmerising journey down the byways of English folklore * MAIL ON SUNDAY * Verbally dextrous, inventive, and hugely entertaining * THE TIMES * This is the most adventurous, stylistically magnificent thing I've read for years. Nobody does fantasy like Zoe Gilbert -- NATASHA PULLEY Mischief Acts is a deeply lyrical, century-spanning polyphony of voices; a dazzling new take on an ancient myth, reminding us of the wildness within. I adored it -- KERRY ANDREW Mischief Acts is brimming with magic - full of wild hunts, river spirits and revelry. The story of Herne, like the forest itself, transforms, entangles and enchants -- LUCY WOOD Superb. A work of shimmering allure. By turns beguiling and mercurial, Gilbert takes British folklore to new heights -- IRENOSEN OKOJIE Praise for Folk: 'An extraordinary debut novel ... It feels both ancient - drawing on deep seams of myth and folklore - and strikingly contemporary, pushing at the edges of what we mean when we call a book a novel. In Folk, Zoe Gilbert has made a thing of strange and enduring beauty -- ALEX PRESTON * FINANCIAL TIMES * Folk is a special book: immersive and dripping with life, each story a spell, an allegory, a dark, smoky poem divined from the landscape of our ancient kingdom ... It reads like a dream that, once visited, is difficult to leave behind -- BEN MYERS * GUARDIAN * Genuinely original, disturbing, beautiful and gripping ... Folk can be read as a map of the British mythic imagination: of the river under the river. Starkly original and expertly written, it draws you, like a faerie song, into a kingdom from which you may never escape, and may not want to * NEW STATESMAN * Dazzling and unsettling, much like the best and darkest of fairy tales * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT * A dark, often discomforting debut ... Gilbert's sensuous prose conjures fantastical figures including a man born with a wing for an arm, and a girl who's abducted by a water bull ... Bewitching * MAIL ON SUNDAY, BEST NEW FICTION * Folk is absolutely stunning. I loved it. With gorgeous, incantatory prose, it submerges you in a mysterious and utterly compelling world. Its illumination lingers long after you close the book -- MADELINE MILLER I was thoroughly absorbed. Zoe Gilbert's invented folk-world is sensuous and dangerous and thick with magic -- TESSA HADLEY That rare thing: genuinely unique. It's part-myth, part-allegory, wholly wonderful * OBSERVER, BOOKS OF THE YEAR * A captivating mythical, magical and haunting debut which draws on fascinating folklore * I PAPER *