Press Reviews

• Niamh Campbell, author of This Happy

  You feel everything in this book. Textured, intense, claustrophobic but riotously human and authentic.

• Eimear Ryan, author of Holding Her Breath

  A layered, immersive and sensory collection, Islanders pulses with life and pathos. Cathy Thomas weaves these overlapping and intersecting stories with finesse, humour, and breathtaking precision. I loved it

• Luiza Sauma, Everything You Ever Wanted

  Islanders is elegant, gritty, funny and unflinching, full of the joys and pains of life, and with a remarkable sense of place. I gulped it down and wanted more. Utterly wonderful.

• Michelle Gallen, author of Big Girl, Small Town

  Islanders is a gritty, dark and joyful book about a complex cast of characters. Every one of these stories reveals gleams of love and tenderness; every one of them packs a punch

• Oisín Fagan, author of Nobber

  The thwarted, unorganised, and chaotic rituals of youth are wonderfully evoked, as are the ruptures in those adult lives that have become stale, untruthful, and painful; an affecting and funny debut

• Mia Gallagher, author of Shift

  These stories are so good. With beautiful and devastating precision, Cathy Thomas has crafted an unforgettable portrait of her island homeland Guernsey, revealed through a web of frail, flawed and - against all odds - connected human lives.

• Barney Norris, author of Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain

  An immensely readable debut, full of pathos ... Every place should have a writer like Cathy Thomas to tell its stories; Guernsey is very lucky to have her

• Julianne Pachico, author of The Anthill

  I devoured these stories. With impressive range and beautifully precise observations, Thomas writes about what home and homesickness really means, the impact of regret, and the challenges of truly growing up. A voice to watch

• Sara Baume, author of Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither

  A wonderful, vivid, bittersweet collection, a universal insight into the unglamorous lives of glamorous places.

• Jan Carson, author of The Raptures

  Fresh and funny and so sharply observed

• Susannah Dickey, author of Tennis Lessons

  The shared but multifaceted claustrophobia of these interwoven lives is intoxicating. Cathy Thomas has a real talent for capturing the specific ennui, yearning, and resignation that occur within a small, resected place; the thoughts that hide behind innocuous conversations, the traitorous desires. This is a sticky, sensory, and very clever collection.

• James Clarke, author of Hollow in the Land

  A vivid collection of short stories, each one unlocking the next, written in luminous prose that shares the whip and sting of the English Channel its characters call home. Cathy Thomas has given us an island that is never silent, a world of peer pressure, drunk driving and yawning cliffs. This thoughtful, generous work will linger in the memory

• Elske Rahill, author of An Unravelling

  Funny, complex and painfully insightful, full of empathy without a sniff of sentimentality. The stories are shot through with exquisite details, and descriptions so evocative they left me stunned. Thomas draws the curtain around her reader and her characters, so that while you are with them, each of these tiny lives matters more than any other - what a feat

• Belfast Telegraph

  A beautiful and darkly funny book of linked stories covering two decades in the lives of a group of people on the island of Guernsey. Their desperate need for connection - and the lengths they're willing to go to - are depicted with empathy and dry humour

• Hannah Beckerman

  Observer

  Assured ... Thomas writes with compassion and humanity

• Entertainment Focus

  Compelling and engaging

• Daily Mail

  Witty, gritty ... a poetic portrait of Guernsey's grubby underside

• Guernsey Press

  Superbly crafted