Cherry: a Novel - Tapa dura

Underachieving 33-year old Steve meets the perfect woman. But she's just a little too perfect, causing Steve to wonder whether he's made a pact with the devil. Thorne has finally delivered a gem. (Henry Sutton ESQUIRE (September 2004))

The determined concision of the storytelling is admirable in itself, and successful...gripping. (Sam Thompson TLS (3.9.04))

CHERRY's real strength is in its incidental comedy and Steve's chatty narration, which teems with elliptical observations and asides. (John O'Connell TIME OUT (7.9.04))

Reading CHERRY is like looking at a photograph of an everyday scene or identifiable face taken slightly out of focus. Everything in the picture maybe recognisable, but at the same time that slight loss of perfect definition renders everything altered or suspect or 'wrong'. It is that distance - the carefully calculated breadth between the normal or the known and the disconcerting or the unknowaable - that gives this novel its strength. (Robert Edric THE SPECTATOR (11.9.04))

[a] stunning and shocking new novel, a masterpiece of menace and unease that will haunt you for days after turning the last page...Matt Thorne has produced the best piece of British noir that I've read in years...[a] fantastic, fraught, Kafka-esque fever dream of a novel...You'll read it in one drop-jaw sitting...CHERRY is that rare thing, a perfect novel. (Stav Sherez ZEMBLA (September issue))

CHERRY is an utterly absorbing read: a hugely satisfying case of a writer finding a narrative perfectly suited to his sparse prose style. The less Thorne gives us, the more we question, until from his seemingly effortless prose there develops an elegant, noirish mystery story. (Alex Heminsley DAILY MAIL (10.9.04))

the novel acquires that most wonderful and blessed quality unique to good books: it is hard to put down (Nicholas Royle INDEPENDENT (13.9.04))

An intriguing and mysterious novel. (Caroline Simms WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY)

'Intriguing love story.' **** (HEAT (18-24 September 2004))

the plot...is a mixture of noirish thriller and Borgesian fantasy. (Simon Baker NEW STATESMAN (20.9.04))