‘James Scudamore is now a force in the English novel, his voice calm and assured. English Monsters is psychologically astute as a study of collusion and denial, and effective as a picture of time and class; but it has wider reach, as a story about the limits of empathy, the ease of retribution and the difficulty of justice.’ Hilary Mantel
‘Breathtakingly good. Imagine Edward St Aubyn writing The Secret History and you’ll get an idea of how exquisite and compelling this story about male friendship and betrayal is.’ Alex Preston, Observer
‘Heart-wrenching… A searing indictment of a culture that downplays and covers up horrors… Harrowing, deeply moving and richly insightful, this is Scudamore’s best novel yet.’ Philip Womack, Financial Times
‘Written in cool, clear-eyed prose, English Monsters is a taut psychological thriller and an astute comment on the institutional neuroses that now haunt our nation.’ Amanda Craig, Daily Telegraph
‘Dark, tender, troubling… It is impossible to read [English Monsters] and not to think of the present blight of emotionally cauterised boarding-school politicians whose various pathologies, fantasies and defence mechanisms Britain must continue to endure.’ Edward Docx, Guardian
‘Scudamore deftly balances creepiness and tenderness… while retaining a cool anger at the imperial mindset that the boarding school system cultivates… English Monsters is one of the most well-observed novels I’ve read on the way that childhood abuse lingers into adulthood.’ Johanna Thomas-Corr, Observer
‘[English Monsters] has echoes of Edward St Aubyn’s (more sardonic) Patrick Melrose series and Hanya Yanagihara’s (more lurid) A Little Life. It contains resonant phrases…on almost every page.’ Sunday Times
‘The pages bubble with quiet rage about an elite education system that wrecks even those it elevates… Scudamore is here for the long haul.’ John Self, Spectator
‘A slow-burn chiller… An intelligent novel in which the horror lies not in explicit scenes of cruelty but rather in Scudamore’s lack of squeamishness about his subject’s queasier psychological corners.’ Metro
‘There are few prizes that Scudamore hasn’t been nominated for, and English Monsters will only add to his impressive tally… Scudamore’s insights are keen and his masterfully evocative writing never less than assured… His descriptions of [Max’s schooldays] etch themselves into your brain.’ Daily Mail
‘The novel recalls the work of both Edward St Aubyn and Alan Hollinghurst. Like them, Scudamore is interested in how it feels to be a part of something and apart from it, half-repulsed, yet desperate to be let in.’ i Newspaper
‘This exploration of the long-term effects of abuse… is both convincing and chilling.’ Daily Express
‘English Monsters is a very impressive novel. Scudamore lightly, deftly conjures the closed world of an institution in which the men who spin the boys’ future are both magicians and monsters. The damage of patriarchy plays down the generations, its story told by a young outsider who more or less got away.’ Sarah Moss
‘English Monsters has the pace and breathless intensity of the best kind of thriller, married to an almost unbearable poignancy. I’ve never read a novel as good and wise on trauma as it moves through the generations, but with such a light touch. There are moments in it that will stay with me forever.’ Evie Wyld
‘From the very title, English Monsters is politely merciless about that most English of traits, suppression. On relationships it is heartfelt and unshirking. What stays with me most though is the tenderness at the heart of the novel. Love we don’t choose, that is just there; and how this throws all those loves we try to engineer into the wind.’ Cynan Jones
‘English Monsters is a tremendously moving novel. What can be done in the face of unspeakable and complicated trauma? What if silence, action, vengeance and loyalty fail the person in need? James Scudamore has given us a timely, provocative work allowing past and present, with all their truths and apprehensions, to shift like rising waters.’ Madeleine Thien