Amy and Lan

Reviews / Votes

I adore Sadie Jones' writing... [Amy and Lan is] funny, moving, and really goes to the heart of why trying to change for the better isn't as simple as it sounds -- Elizabeth Day, *Day's Delights* Jones's fictional landscape is jam-packed, abundant, and her smallholding as thick with intrigue as the Borgias' court... I don't think I've read another recent novel that better captures the pure sugar-rush of childhood; the sense of a life so exhilarating and ecstatic that it is almost too much to bear -- Xan Brooks * Guardian * I couldn't put it down. Amy and Lan is a love letter to nature, to the seasons, to the ideal of simple living with all its human complications. It's a beautifully evoked story, full of empathy and hope -- Esther Freud, author of I COULDN'T LOVE YOU MORE Achingly poignant... This is a novel of quiet beauty, vividly evoking the magnitude of childhood loss and the capacity for hope -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer * A bright, bittersweet novel * Evening Standard, *Summer Reads of 2022* * I loved Amy and Lan: the way parents mess up their children's lives is heartbreaking yet beautifully conveyed. I've long been a Sadie Jones fan but this may be her best yet. Poignant, compelling and brilliant -- Mary Lawson, author of A TOWN CALLED SOLACE Alive with the wonders of seasonal changes and the thrum of farm life, Amy and Lan will make you cry. Complex, beautifully written and true. I loved this book -- Monique Roffey, author of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH Compelling... [Jones] doesn't disappoint with this intermittently joyous but affecting portrait of childhood * i * Jones brilliantly ventriloquises Amy and her best friend Lan... She conveys their passionate attachment to the freedom of their unconventional upbringing and deep connection to nature * Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2022* * Sadie Jones is a consummate novelist of the modern family, in all its mess, cruelties, loyalties, treacheries and tragedies. This child's eye perspective on the 21st century attempt at the Good Life is topical, comical and horrifying. I read it heart in mouth -- Amanda Craig, author of THE GOLDEN RULE