How to Measure a Cow

This is Margaret Forster's last novel, sadly, and it's full of reminders of what made her such a shrewd and arresting chronicler of women’s lives

Hephzibah Anderson, Mail on Sunday

An exemplary final work … wonderfully well-observed

D.J. Taylor, The Times

Her simple, direct prose never strikes a false note

Lucy Popescu, Independent on Sunday

Deft, intriguing and gripping. Forster never disappoints.

Kate Williams, Woman & Home

Margaret Forster writes the most amazing prose, tight without a superfluous word and still with the ability to convey crystal clear images to the reader… She weaves loyalty, betrayal, friendship, honour and honesty with wonderful characterisation into an absorbing story.

Sheila A. Grant, Nudge

Forster is very good at the slow reveal, gradually illuminating the more questionable aspects of Tara's character as well as the crime that changed her life. She's also brilliant on the complexities of ordinary people, particularly women: the little ways they deceive themselves, their quickness to judge and their clumsy determination to be kind

Claire Allfree, Daily Mail

The work of a novelist in her prime… The narrative is taut and suspenseful, the characterization complex and dynamic.

Stevie Davies, Guardian

Quietly compelling.

Sunday Times

It is Forster’s acute scrutiny of the economy of friendship that hooks.

Stephanie Cross, Observer

Amply displays her formidable talent as a storyteller, undiminished to the end, and her marvellous ability to anatomise the lives of her characters while still enabling them to emerge fully realised in the reader’s imagination… The novel is a rich inquiry into the nature of friendship… Forster is, as ever, brilliant at the telling details that illuminate her characters’ inner lives… A fine last novel by an outstanding writer, it will disappoint neither longstanding admirers nor newcomers to Forster’s work. Above all, it is a novel about the abiding human need to love and to be loved, a need that Forster makes clear is beyond measurement.

Rebecca Abrams, Financial Times

Characters are cleverly drawn and the north/south divide well depicted

Vanessa Berridge, Daily Express

Margaret Forster…excelled at writing about complex relationships between women… Forster’s skill is to show how very different characters shift and develop according to what life throws at them.

Elisa Segrave, Spectator

A more nuanced take on the potential recuperative powers of the rural environment than many others novels written in this vein.

Lucy Scholes, Countryfile

The first five chapters of Forester’s novel are a remarkable exercise in withholding and revelation by minute increments… There is much in it to admire, from the distinctive resonance of her deceptively plain style to her descriptions of landscape.

Jane Shilling, New Statesman

Margaret Forster is excellent at painting the picture and her dialogue is always A1.

Deirdre Spendlove, Nudge

Brilliantly drawn… Atmosphere and characters linger long after the novel ends

Sunday Times