The Offering

Extraordinary...Wonderfully suspenseful and deeply moving, The Offering is full of insights about the nature of madness. It is also keenly observant of the ways in which men play God and the power of the oppressed imagination to create an inhabitable world, even under near-intolerable conditions. - John Burnside, Guardian

That McCleen is a writer of exceptional gifts is beyond doubt. Her prose can soar in moments of breathtaking beauty, most particularly when she turns a poet's eye on the landscape...she writes equally viscerally about her narrator's emotional terrain, depicting claustrophobia, shame and terror so painfully it makes your skin itch. - Stephanie Merritt, Observer

Strange and beautiful - Hope Whitmore, Independent on Sunday

Grace McCleen's talent for description, especially when portraying the natural world, is quite exquisite - Carol Midgley, The Times

The richness with which Madeline describes her febrile younger self contrasts heartbreakingly with the glassy, emotionally neutered life she inhabits now...a bold, mature, terribly sad novel. - Claire Allfree, Daily Mail

Impressive, a plausible and moving account of mental illness. - Sam Kitchener, Daily Telegraph

Captures the intensity of teenage anguish, and expresses a terrifying estimation of its implications, but it also dares to suggest that God can never be removed from the equation and asks: What is God? - Max Liu, Independent

There is an eerie sense of foreboding in Grace McCleen's wonderful third novel...Terrific and terrifying. - Psychologies (Book of the Month)