Gerry and Linda Maguire are married and have two thirty something children. Nicole is a hard working, functional alcoholic, who never shies from giving her opinion, while Jamie is reticent and prone to people pleasing. When Linda and Gerry announce their separation after decades of marriage, Nicole and Jamie are stunned. We follow each of the equally flawed characters over the course of the year after the announcement and see how it affects them all. Painfully funny, acutely well-observed, powerfully resonant in its humanity and emotional accuracy. I missed this book whenever I wasn’t reading it’ Luke Kennard Set over a year this is an intensely intimate glimpse into all of their lives. I laughed, I cried, I cringed, I gasped. This is such a real portrayal of family life, warts and all, that it took my breath away with its accuracy. I could have kept on reading about this family for a long, long time. I’ve read a lot of books about women struggling through their twenties, this is a book about the whole family struggling through life - and it is stunning.

Gerry's character is also from the same town in Northern Ireland as me, which I was so excited to see represented, that may have played a little part in my overall enjoyment of this novel! This novel is divided into seasons, which I loved as it paces the Novel really well. Each chapter revolves around eating/drinking hence the title "At the Table". This never felt repetitive and often felt like an easter egg when you realised where the "table" was within the chapter. It also made me realise how often we celebrate or commiserate over food. How food plays such a huge part in the milestones of our life.

Books Multibuys

Hardworking - and hard-drinking - Nicole pursues the ex she unceremoniously dumped six years ago, while people-pleasing Jamie fears he's sleepwalking into a marriage he doesn't actually want. But as the siblings grapple with the pressures of thirtysomething life, their parents struggle to protect the fragile façade of their own relationship, and the secrets they've both been keeping. At the Table is a hugely intelligent, emotionally astute novel about family dynamics, and Claire Powell is an incredible new talent’ Marian Keyes You know when you see a book and you know that you HAVE to read it? Well this one definitely caught my attention, just look at that cover. I have to say - it didn’t disappoint. Claire Powell’s writing has a warmth to it, a gentle kindness. A family in crisis, four equally flawed adults, you find yourself rooting for them all. Set in 2018, Claire Powell's beautifully observed debut novel follows each member of the Maguire family over a tumultuous year of lunches, dinners and drinks, as old conflicts arise and relationships are re-evaluated. A gripping yet tender depiction of family dynamics, love and disillusionment, At the Table is about what it means to grow up - both as an individual, and as a family.

My favourite character award definitely goes to Jamie; I could read another whole book from his POV. His storyline was excellent, well written and how the writer describes anxiety and depression felt so personal and true to life.At the Table is a debut novel focusing on characters and their interactions with one another. Though major life events take place, this novel focuses primarily on the little moments that make up the mosaic of our lives. A 2022 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR for THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, RED, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING AND CRITIC Powell paints a frank yet tender picture of people at their lowest. The events felt, on occasion, as if they were washing over me but I found myself touched by the attempts of the author to show the characters shifting and developing. Our focus is a family comprising Gerry and Linda and their grown-up children, Jamie and Nicole. Their lives have been marked by meals, and this focuses on a year in their lives at different moments. We start with a meal where the parents reveal they’re getting divorced and we end with a meal shared with mother and daughter who are, due to the events they’ve been through, forging a new relationship. Along the way we have celebratory meals, catch-up meals, drunken meals but our focus is always the family and their gradual discoveries about themselves and each other. A character explicitly tells one of the protagonists that he’s about to show her a video of his kid. As he pulls out his phone, the next sentence reads ‘She could tell immediately that it was a video of a child.’ Are we trying to hit word count here? Why on earth was this inane sentence necessary?

Claire Powell is generous with her characters, and I felt equally pained for the betrayed character as the betrayer in two (maybe even three) scenarios, without feeling like the writer was making excuses for wrong actions. People just do shitty things because they're people, and I never really disliked anyone in this book despite the many mistakes most of them make. Oh to be a reader all the time instead being restricted to a single silly mind and body that has to feel feelings and take things personally.Painfully realistic, this frank but tender portrayal of people at their lowest is a book everyone can relate to. And the cover is just, all the YES. I can’t wait to see what Claire Powell does next. There was a half-hearted attempt to tie this saccharine story in a bow, but it ultimately fell so flat that I felt cheated.