Press Reviews

• Philippa Perry, author of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read

  I was in the story, feeling everything. I cared about every character . . . She writes beautifully. It was a total pleasure

• Tamsin Greig

  Always surprising - unexpected, particular, the thing you didn't know you wanted, but needed more than anything. A tender study of unrequited maternal love redeemed ultimately by the quiet glory of not giving up

• Linda Grant

  She takes the study of love into uncharted territory and every sentence has its depths and pleasures

• Shena Mackay

  Her writing has a Keatsian belief in the holiness of the Heart's affections . . . a beautiful work of art, a page-turning narrative with wise and funny observations and dialogue . . . both heart-breaking and consoling

• Joan Bakewell

  I am so moved: it carries a huge emotional power . . . I ached for them all. Poignant, witty, lyrical and perceptive

• Lisa Dwan

  A novel of profound courage and consideration; every page a kaleidoscope of thoughtful insight into human frailty and complexity . . . one of the greatest visceral studies of love I have ever experienced

• Martin Chilton

  Independent

  This beautiful tale of love, courage and compassion...captures the pain of estrangement in penetrating, haunting language... Loved and Missed is a complex, deeply moving novel about frailty and suffering. Despite all the sadness, hope remains

• Marianka Swain

  The Sunday Telegraph, Novel of the Week

  It's an arresting premise for Susie Boyt's thoughtprovoking seventh novel...Boyt's novel is compelling - and invites our compassion for those who may not always earn it, but still deserve it.

• Emily Hourican

  Irish Independent

  Boyt is both funny...and poignant...but never less than impeccably truthful, with a broad, oft breathtaking wisdom

• Mia Levitin

  Financial Times

  Loved and Missed deftly sidesteps the clichés that often plague stories involving drug abuse, and it conveys the complexities of loving someone who can't love you back with remarkable delicacy.

• Fiona Sturges

  i

  An acute, enormously moving study of familial love, and how the bonds between a mother and child can rupture, sometimes inexplicably.

• Marianka Swain

  Daily Telegraph

  Boyt's novel is compelling-and invites our compassion for those who may not always earn it, but still deserve it

• Spectator

  To wrest exquisite prose and engaging narrative out of a tale of pain and sorrow is the achievement of a serious novelist who has blossomed into originality and who deserves a wide audience

• MSN

  Boyt's writing is perceptive and emotionally powerful

• Rev Richard Coles

  Daily Mail

  I adored Susie Boyt's novel Loved And Missed, which explores what can happen when, out of the blue, addiction and dereliction arrive to wreck a family. And how goodwill, determination and encouragement can ultimately put things back together again.

• Atlantic

  Regret and joy are an indivisible duo for any mother or father, and Boyt wisely mixes them into a beautifully humane chronicle. With this exquisite devotional of a novel, she has turned the ability to find contentment in the muck of parenthood into a courageous art form