«Reading The String Diaries made me feel, in the best sense, like a child again. Nothing was more important than the fate of Stephen Lloyd Jones's courageous and very human heroine Hannah Wilde. Meals went uncooked, bills went unpaid, as I waited to find out if she would win freedom for herself and her daughter against the forces of darkness. I was scared, enthralled and amazed by this stunning debut»

Margot Livesey, author of <i> The Flight of Gemma Hardy

«The String Diaries is an engrossing, mind-bending supernatural tale, and Stephen Lloyd Jones is as exciting a new voice as I've come across in some time, a writer who understands what makes the pulse race»

Michael Koryta, author of <i>Those Who Wish Me Dead

«At once chilling and soulful, this hauntingly powerful tale weaves together the best elements of the psychological thriller, fantasy horror, and historical fiction. Stephen Lloyd Jones has penned a deeply inventive, dazzling debut novel»

Eliot Pattison, author of Edgar Award-winning <i>The Skull Mantra

«With The String Diaries, Stephen Lloyd Jones has created a new mythology of the monstrous to rival Stoker's or Shelley's. Grounded in the real world and populated by characters we believe in, this is a book of magic for the doubtful, a fantastic tale for skeptics, at once transporting and convincing»

Andrew Pyper, author of <i>The Demonologist

«I have never read a book with such frenzied impatience. The String Diaries is unputdownable. Stephen Lloyd Jones has written a debut novel as frightening and layered as Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian and as clever and riveting as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code»

Benjamin Percy, author of <i>Red Moon

«I loved this book»

Marcus Sakey, author of <i>Brilliance

«So gripping you'll want to read late into the night; so terrifying you shouldn't»

Simon Mayo, the Radio 2 Book Club

«Original, richly imagined and powerfully told»

Guardian

«Will keep you awake late into the night»

SFX