'A haunting, hopeful masterpiece.' - Sinead Gleeson

'A moral tale that is unsentimental and deeply affecting, because true and right.' - David Hayden

A short, masterful novel . . . Detailed, insightful and written with striking economy of language . . . a timely and powerful book. ? Irish Times

A sublime, emotive story, the kind you emerge from as if having been away for a very long time: unsure, at first, how to continue with your own life. ? Guardian

Outstanding . . . Written with barely a word out of place, Keegan's exquisite novel brims with fury at the Irish towns whose silence effectively sanctioned for decades untold abuses at the heart of their communities. ***** ? Metro

A feat of compression, concerned with the nature of goodness and the texture of everyday life . . . [A] snowglobe of a story that fits a whole bustling, striving, yearning world into 114 finely wrought pages. ? Sunday Times

Breathtaking . . . [a] stunning new work . . . gripping and subtly emotionally charged from start to finish. ? Sunday Independent

Keegan's novella is perfectly titled: all its power lies in its understatement; all its heft in its apparent weightlessness . . . Keegan is the goddess of small things. Her ability to conjure whole worlds from a few words; an entire relationship from a handful of exchanges, is little short of miraculous . . . Small Things Like These assures us we are all capable of doing the right thing, and that goodness, like misery, can be handed on from man to man. It is a literary state of grace. ? Herald

A genuine once-in-a-generation writer whose dedication to her craft is as meticulous as it is masterly. ? The Times

A powerful, haunting drama . . . essential reading. ? Sunday Business Post

Make no mistake, a new novel from the author of Antarctica, Walk the Blue Fields and Foster is a literary event, and Small Things Like These, her first book in 11 years, and only 97 pages long, serves as a vivid reminder that in this case, less is definitely more. ? RTE Culture

No better feeling than reading a book that makes you excited to discover everything its author has ever written... This is a tale of courage and compassion, of good sons and vulnerable young mothers. Absolutely beautiful. -- Douglas Stuart

Powerful and affecting and very timely. Small Things Like These is not just about Ireland, it's about the world, and it asks profound questions about complicity, about the hope and difficulty of change, and the complex nature of restitution. A single one of Keegan's grounded, powerful sentences can contain volumes of social history. Every word is the right word in the right place, and the effect is resonant and deeply moving. -- Hilary Mantel

In Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan creates scenes with astonishing clarity and lucidity. This is the story of what happened in Ireland, told with sympathy and emotional accuracy. From winter skies to the tiniest tick of speech to the baking of a Christmas cake, Claire Keegan makes her moments real-and then she makes them matter. -- Colm Tóibín

Marvellous-exact and icy and loving all at once. -- Sarah Moss

With stunning economy, Keegan tells a powerful story of Ireland's unresolved past, in gorgeous, exacting prose. A haunting, hopeful masterpiece. -- Sinéad Gleeson

Small Things Like These goes straight to the heart - it is both precise and beautiful. A true gift of a book, controlled yet abundant in small wonders. It's a novel about complicity, the things we decide not to see, and reading it brings a sublime Chekhovian shock. -- Andrew O'Hagan