Selected as a best book of 2022 by The Times & Sunday Times, The Telegraph, Good Housekeeping, Red Magazine and The Critic. Buy here.

What sets At the Table apart is Powell’s acute understanding not just of how we interact in the modern world, but the eternals of the human comedy: how people fool themselves, make excuses, get it wrong and keep trying anyway. We see each person’s façade, and then we get to look behind it; so they feel like people, not characters, and it’s an emotional wrench… Even as they do stupid things, we can’t help but feel affection for them.' The Times

'An exquisitely observed story of modern family dynamics.' British Vogue

'Powell is a fantastic writer who exercises perfect control. Every detail is forensically, sympathetically observed, and while there's a lot that's tragic, it's often very close to comedy.' Daily Mail 

'The story's centre is Nicole - a spiky and charismatic woman struggling to get her life in order… Like Waller-Bridge's Fleabag and Rooney's Marianne, Nicole is her own woman: a complex and satisfying presence. At the Table is rich with delights.' Harper's Bazaar

'Filled with razor-sharp dialogue and psychological acuity, At the Table is an astute debut novel about dysfunctional family life.' Observer

'Powell's great skill is to reveal to the reader what her characters struggle to realise themselves . . . Its themes are unremarkable - love, self-knowledge, the feeling everyone else is living while you are standing still . . . yet almost everything in it feels true' Metro

'An assured, exquisitely drawn novel that fans of Sorrow and Bliss will adore' Red Magazine 

'Cleverly told…witty family drama' Good Housekeeping 

'A really absorbing family drama that will move you to tears - and laughter' Best 

'The kind of rare story you want to nosedive into on a hot hungover weekend and slurp down like iced coffee - cold, sweet and quenching . . . a summer read to devour with suncream and spilt rosé - and then lend to your mum or your daughter' The Times ‘Novel of the Summer’

'I want to press At the Table into the hands of everyone I know. A darkly comic family drama in which people flirt, fight and get divorced over food, it is just a great example of a simple idea done exceptionally well' i News 

'Best of all, Powell's novel doesn't end until the very last line – a corker and a clear full stop – which makes it stand out in a world where the mimsy coda (the turning back to the house, the standing up and contemplating the view) seems de rigueur' The Critic 

'Well-observed, funny and sad all at the same time. Amazingly assured for a debut novel' A Little Bird

'Brilliantly clever and funny and sad' India Knight, author of Darling

'I have rarely seen the relationship between parents and their grown-up children so deftly exposed. I sat, at the end of it, startled, close to tears. It made me want to call my mother immediately' Sophie Heawood, author of The Hungover Games

'A beautifully-written novel about what keeps a family together and what tears it apart' Lissa Evans, author of Crooked Heart

'A hugely intelligent, emotionally astute novel about family dynamics. Claire Powell is an incredible new talent' Marian Keyes, author of Grown-Ups

'A brilliant, coruscating depiction of dysfunctional family life. SO astute, on so many levels. I loved it' Hannah Beckerman, author of The Impossible Truths of Love

'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, author of The Answer to Everything

'A lovely novel. I adored the precision with which these people are seen, and the exactness of the social setting. I found myself absorbed in them, caring about them, wanting them to do the right thing, and I was very sorry to leave them. It's a novel Elizabeth Taylor wouldn't wouldn't have minded writing, and there aren't enough of those around' Philip Hensher, author of The Northern Clemency

'I loved this novel... Powell's writing and characters are funny and heartbreaking and moreish. I'm jealous of anyone who hasn't read it yet' Flynn Berry, author of Northern Spy