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'The Crossing is an engrossing read filled with interesting people' writes Sarah Tanburn in her glowing review of Dai Smith's latest novel. Filled with 'muscular prose', it asks fundamental questions about both the past and the future of a Cymru built on coal and the strong backs of miners.

'The Crossing demands we ask ourselves those urgent questions about the future even as we wonder who sired whom and who will come off worst in the next violent encounter. The reader needs to put in the time to follow these threads but the resulting tapestry rewards in its rich detail and new insights.'

'I learned what it was to love and leave a place after reading Raymond Williams.'

Originally published in 1960, Raymond Williams's novel about rural working-class life resonates with readers as much today as it did sixty years ago. For the author Lynsey Hanley, it exerts the same power whenever she re-reads it.

'Helen Pendry’s astonishingly assured first novel, The Levels, ends with a plan to retrieve not so much national identity – though that plays a significant part in her narrative - as political parity with those whose shady military affairs ride roughshod over local concerns.'

In a resoundingly positive review, The Yorkshire Times offers an indepth and sensitive reflection on Helen Pendry's many-layered and grittily authentic debut literary thriller The Levels.

You can read the full review here.

We asked Sam Adams, author of the much anticipated Road to Zarauz what advice he would give to any young or aspiring writers. Here's what he had to say.