'Sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel. This is an unashamedly conventional realist novel, but such an exceptional one that it's bound to rekindle even the most cynical reader's appreciation of the form . . . Spellbindingly, heartbreakingly unforgettable'
- Daily Mail, Books of the Year
'Not many novels mix juicy romance and wartime violence. War-induced longing is a common fictional occurrence - consider Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, or, to a lesser degree, Ian McEwan's Atonement - but a vivid, sexy, not-doomed-feeling love story that also takes a war zone as a central subject rather than simply a setting is rarer'
- Atlantic
'A first novel that reads nothing like one, this is a tender, fiercely beautiful story . . . Every finely grooved detail here feels authentic'
- Sunday Times, Books of the Year
'Hands down the best book this year was Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. There has been praise for Kennedy's eye in recreating the Belfast of the mid-70s, but it is the precision of the emotional detail that holds the readers attention: after a while, you forget to exhale'
- Anne Enright, Irish Times, Books of the Year
'We know that civil wars are made up of thousands of small tragedies. But I know few novels that convey the grim predictability of everyday violence during that period so well. Kennedy's careful attention is a welcome counter to Brexit's careless disregard of lives and loves lost'
- New Statesman, Books of the Year
'Brilliant, beautiful, heartbreaking . . . I am not a crier, but by the final pages of Trespasses I was in tears. It's a testament to Kennedy's talents that we come to love and care so much about her characters'
- New York Times Book Review
'Thrilling, wise, and moving, Trespasses is a remarkable novel about the wages of love in a time marked by brutality, strife, and above all, a will to hope. A totally absorbing read'
- Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life and Filthy Animals
'Absorbing . . . Wise far beyond its first book status, Trespasses vaults Kennedy into the ranks of such contemporary masters as McCann, Claire Keegan, Colin Barrett, and fellow Sligo resident, Kevin Barry'
- Oprah Daily