The stories have a strong sense of the reality of rural life and its underbelly, the curious dynamics of families, and an
almost mystical feel for mortality. These are unforced and spacious pieces, totally sure-footed in their telling and as good as any modern fiction you will read this year

The Sunday Times, The best new short story collections for June 2021

At the heart of his collection lies Chemistry, a compelling portrait of family and migration

Tablet

He heads into the contemporary world and the moments that can darken or illuminate a life … These stories … are all given the same wise consideration, and described with an unerring, kindly exactitude

Daily Mail

Lyrical and gentle, with a theme of familial interplay

Country Life, Book of the Week

PRAISE FOR TIM PEARS: Goodness, Tim Pears writes beautifully … the descriptions of rural life, executed with painterly exactness, are a constant delight. The prose really sings

Mail on Sunday

This is it. This is the real thing. This is whatever I mean by the work of a born writer … Comic and wry and elegiac and shrewd and thoughtful all at once. Please read it

A S Byatt