The Old Romantic

Channels the rough music of everyday life with a tragicomic subtlety, a pin-sharp ear for dialogue and a flair for every nuance of character and class. Louise Dean's fearless, frank and darkly comic novels have brought a fresh colour and character to English fiction

Boyd Tonkin, Independent

Dark, scurrilous and richly comic. There is so much to treasure in this terrific book, but its deepest joy is the sharp, perceptive writing

Financial Times

Dean is able to demonstrate her unobtrusive skill as the creator of comic set-pieces...painfully funny

The Sunday Times

Very appealing...so vivid are the quintessentially British characters and the snappy, well-observed dialogue. Delightful, eccentric

Observer

Dean's observations have a lyrical intensity few can match

Guardian

A warm-hearted comedy of bad manners

Daily Mail

Dean writes with beautifully controlled clarity about family ties, social class, the generation gap and the vanished England of the past. She's extremely funny, but also humane and moving

The Times

Sharply observed

Psychologies

Compassionate and amusing

The Times Literary Supplement