'Runcie has captured the truth about love ... he is the simple chronicler of English post-war life, using irony and understatement to lay bare the pathos of ordinary lives ... Beautifully done'

Sunday Telegraph

'A tender, intimate account of post-war England which left me both wistful and elated ... So engaging, so well-shaped and so unsparingly, generously truthful'

Jim Crace

'Runcie's third novel is a funny, epic, moving story of Thameside folk ... Canvey Island is a beautifully observed, tragi-comic work'

What's On

'Runcie writes with an excellent feeling for time and place, and, above all, the intensity of ordinary lives'

Choice