A Vicious Circle

Line after line of sparkling malice...a fierce and funny book * Harpers & Queen * Line after line of sparkling malice...a fierce and funny book * Harpers & Queen * A novel of rare intelligence and ambition...Funny, insightful, beautifully plotted * Time Out * A novel of rare intelligence and ambition...Funny, insightful, beautifully plotted * Time Out * It makes you laugh, it makes you blub...an excellent and entertaining read * Daily Mail * It makes you laugh, it makes you blub...an excellent and entertaining read * Daily Mail * A plot of marvellous intricacy...it provokes peals of horrid laughter * Observer * A plot of marvellous intricacy...it provokes peals of horrid laughter * Observer * Combines wit, panache and extravagance with a penetrating moral sense...delightfully readable and not a little disturbing * Scotsman * Combines wit, panache and extravagance with a penetrating moral sense...delightfully readable and not a little disturbing * Scotsman * A Vicious Circle has the zest and mordant wit of an early Evelyn Waugh and it is a testament to Craig's talent that the characters leap off the page despite their often cartoon-like grotesquerie . . . In an age in which we are seriously lacking comic novels with bite, A Vicious Circle is a wonderful tonic - a work that makes you cry with laughter but also eats unforgettably into your soul * Sunday Telegraph * A Vicious Circle has the zest and mordant wit of an early Evelyn Waugh and it is a testament to Craig's talent that the characters leap off the page despite their often cartoon-like grotesquerie . . . In an age in which we are seriously lacking comic novels with bite, A Vicious Circle is a wonderful tonic - a work that makes you cry with laughter but also eats unforgettably into your soul * Sunday Telegraph * An excellent novel * Fay Weldon, Sunday Times * An excellent novel * Fay Weldon, Sunday Times * A brilliant disquisition on the way we live now...No wonder some people mention it in the same breath as Vanity Fair. Its treatment of ambition, of social rise and fall, warrant the comparison...a hugely entertaining book * Cressida Connolly, The Oldie * A brilliant disquisition on the way we live now...No wonder some people mention it in the same breath as Vanity Fair. Its treatment of ambition, of social rise and fall, warrant the comparison...a hugely entertaining book * Cressida Connolly, The Oldie *

Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy, where her parents worked for the UN, and was educated at Bedales School and Clare College Cambridge. After a brief time in advertising and PR, she became a journalist for newspapers such as the Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Telegraph and Independent, winning both the Young Journalist of the Year and the Catherine Pakenham Award. She was the children's critic for the Independent on Sunday and The Times. She still reviews children's books for the New Statesman, and literary fiction for the Observer, but is mostly a full-time novelist. Her novel Hearts and Minds was longlisted for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction, and The Lie of the Land was chosen as a book of the year by the Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, New Statesman, Evening Standard, Sunday Times and Irish Times. Her latest novel, The Golden Rule was longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021.