The Countenance Divine

One of the most exciting novels I've read in recent years. Michael Hughes writes like a brilliant cross between David Mitchell and Hilary Mantel. What begins with a dizzying variety of voices, in a bewildering set of times, comes together at the end into a powerful, haunting meditation on history, poetry and love - Toby Litt

A stylish and exciting novel with an intimate tale that spans centuries, and a captivating cast who help navigate the readers through a vivid range of settings - Bookbag

A fascinating chimera of a novel, hallucinatory and compelling - Jo Baker

The Countenance Divine moves effortlessly from deadpan humour and visceral demotic to the soaring language of the visionary. An ambitious and persuasive debut - Rupert Thomson

A virtuoso performance from a writer of quite prodigious gifts: an astonishingly accomplished first novel - Glenn Patterson

A strange, witty and dazzlingly clever fable on art, ambition and morality - Guardian

It's hard to believe that Michael Hughes' The Countenance Divine is his first novel . . . a deft and ambitious debut . . . The time-hopping narrative and interconnectedness of all things draws easy comparison with David Mitchell, the master of interweaving narratives, but Hughes is equally up to the task . . . He also slips deftly between realism and magic realism reminiscent of Hilary Mantel's Beyond Black, which shows an incredibly assured touch for a debut novelist - Stylist

A novel of big ideas that flows, and reads, like a dream. Solid yet sinuous, and very satisfying - Gavin Corbett