The Coward's Tale (Hardback)

My novel of the year ... an extraordinarily lyrical, moving, funny evocation of a Welsh mining town and its inhabitants ... A terrific achievement -- A.N. Wilson * Financial Times BOOK OF THE YEAR *
This first novel is a gem ... A comparison might be made with Under Milk Wood - but even though I'm a Dylan Thomas fan, for me, Gebbie's understated anatomy of a Welsh town outsoars him. It's less whimsical, and at its heart is a gritty awareness of what's happened to this former mining community in the 21st century - with the interlocking tales building up into a poignant, unforgettable picture. This is a real writer - you'll be hearing a lot more of her * Reader's Digest *
Gebbie's prose has something of the musical rhythm and cadence of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. The lilting dialect is seductive and the poetic sweep through a town and its folk reminiscent of Jon McGregor's masterpiece, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. The poetry is unobtrusive but makes the characters live and breathe ... heartbreaking ... a hypnotic debut * Independent *
The unlikely but entirely legitimate child of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Dylan Thomas, The Coward's Tale invests everyday life with a quality at once whimsical and heroic * Charles Lambert *
Tender and gripping - a brilliantly written epic * Maggie Gee *
A rich seam of fables conjuring a community bound together by tragedy and secrets. Everyone knows something about someone but only one man knows everything about everyone. The Coward's own tale is the bravest of all * Damian Barr *
Compulsively readable. She writes with such warmth and kindness * Mari Strachan, author of The Earth Hums in B Flat *
Gebbie's voice catches Thomas's lyricism ... But it is Ianto's own history, tragically entangled with the colliery disaster which devastated the town two generations previously, that proves the most spellbinding * Guardian *
An absorbing portrait of love, grief and humanity ... Gebbie's first full-length novel is richly poetic, its landscape steeped in the Welsh landscape and the texture of the rain-washed street * Psychologies *
The Coward's Tale is a Russian doll of a book, layers within layers, histories, ghosts, superstitions and secrets. It shines a light through the material of human nature, our successes and failings, strengths and weaknesses, pride and vanity and love ... Timeless. Storytelling at its best * Salena Godden *
The tales are gripping, the language powerful and at times almost poetic ... This book is a human, thoughtful collection of a community's reaction to a tragedy which touched the lives and hearts of so many people ... The Coward's Tale is a must-read * Lifestyle *