Praise for Hugs, hearts and histrionics

"As I embarked on the production of yet another self-indulgent, overly-long and, let's face it, ludicrously pompous sentence designed purely to illustrate my immense vocabulary and disdain for the reader, Hugs, hearts and histrionics sprang to mind like the long-forgotten memory of a particularly picquant pickle - a pickle, I might add, that evoked all the tastes, smells and insecurities of my youth and which somehow encapsulated the very essence of the confusion, dislocation and uncertainty of partition - created by that giant of the kitchen, Saleem. Tastebuds were tickled, synapses excited, emotions brought kicking and screaming to the forefront of my mind that had long been submerged as a form of protection from the past that haunts me still, and yet, it was cathartic in a way that few books I've deigned to read have ever been. In Kieron Hayes we have a potential giant of the literary world whose light needs to emerge from under his own bushel and scream from the rooftops all that he has to offer. Rarely have I been so entertained, so informed, so in thrall to the dexterity exhibited on a page or, indeed, quite so envious."

Salmon Rushdie

"There's nothing in the way of bondage action here, or thinly-veiled misogyny in fact. Unlike my most successful book, however, it's worth reading."

EDL James

"Although I notoriously injected heroin while on a plane with the Prime Minister this isn't about me, sadly. It's about one man's flirtation with a facebook group, which is nothing to do with me and subsequently of little interest to my literary peers (not that I have any peers in the literary world - that would suggest some level of parity with me, which is, frankly, prepostrous.) Read it if you think it will enrich your insignificant little existence, perhaps lifting it out of its relentless mundanity, for even a brief moment. I suspect it will singularly fail to do so, unlike my groundbreaking series of restaurant reviews that I churned out a while back purely for the money. There was one about a chip shop I think."

Well Shelf

"Barry, likesay. This bam's tae fucking good by far, Catboy, ken? Ah cannae git past tha fact that ah've no cum across this gadge afore. Ah've no been on facebook either, so it kinday went ower ma heid, ken?"

Irving Scots

"It's a book. A good one. Worthy of attention. It isn't about emasculation. Unlike much of my work."

Earnest Hummingbird

"I haven't got time to read this or any other book. I've been so busy saving the UK from the mess created by the last Labour government that I've barely had time to leave my children behind in a pub."

David Cameroon

"Now then, now then. Jingle jangle, jewellery, jewellery. Charity, child abuse. Ughhhughhhhughhhughhhh."

Jimmy Saveloy