Glasgow Boys

Tenderness itself, a song to love and friendship. Margaret McDonald is a terrific new talent and I encourage you to buy this novel for everyone who makes you smile.

This desperately poignant YA debut is a paean to the power of friendship, and daring to be vulnerable in the face of past hurt.

The kind of first novel critics tend to use the word "assured" about - code for: "This is far better than any first book has any right to be. It is brilliant, and I am insanely jealous of this writer's talent.". . . An utterly beautiful read.

Powerful . . . deserves to be widely read and loved.

Along with it's deeply-felt, fast-paced and beautifully constructed double narrative, it's the hard-edged sense of the economic reality of working class Glasgow lives that gives the book much of its raw strength.

Hopeful, heartbreaking, and ultimately joyful, Glasgow Boys is that rare novel – viscerally authentic, it completely nails how teenage boys navigate a world where emotion, and human connection, is seen as weakness. A beautifully told story and a stunning debut.