Mary Beth Keane writes to the heart of the human heart. She shows us how love can deepen, how love can stall – hang in the sky like a half moon, waxing and waning in the same moment, equal parts shadow and light. I could not put this book down’

Absorbing … Keane excels at moments of interior deliberation … it’s such a pleasure to sink into Keane’s quietly luminous prose … Her recordings of the small, significant moments of life have a way of standing for something larger… [Keane’s] perceptive, generous observations and attention to her characters’ inner lives make for a book that is much, much more than the sum of its characters. She manages to find the extraordinary grace in our achingly ordinary world

I adored this compelling, touching, exquisitely crafted story about a marriage in crisis. As a devoted fan of Mary Beth Keane, I’m already looking forward to whatever she chooses to write next!

I fell in love with The Half Moon from the first page, and barely looked up until I’d finished. Mary Beth Keane has written another brilliantly absorbing novel about complicated marriages and family dynamics – how they shape us, yes, but how they undo us as well. Prepare to lose yourself in this book

Mary Beth Keane is one of our finest writers on the interior complexities of marriage and family. She shines a flashlight on the intricate clockwork of love and longing that runs inside us; and because of the thoughtfulness of that examination, beauty and possibility are visible. I ran my finger over sentences while reading, thinking: Yes, exactly. This kind of fiction recognizes us, and allows us to look around our own lives with respect and kindness, and is therefore a great gift

Keane writes in a sturdily realist vein-the vivid, domesticated world of Anne Tyler, of William Trevor, of Elizabeth Strout-but her insights into matters of the heart, longing and restlessness especially, have astonishing delicacy

A masterful novel that tells with great tenderness how love goes wrong and how, with hope, it can be righted. Mary Beth Keane is an unnervingly talented novelist – dead-on brilliant, authentic, full of humour, and possessing a dark and comforting wisdom. The Half Moon is a triumph

A quietly marvellous story of dreams, disappointments and second chances, but, mostly, love

Keane explores the sacrifices of a marriage . . . The tension is undeniable and deeply compelling . . . with an unexpected twist, Keane’s charming, tautly-paced, and introspective novel will delight

Here, a full marriage story is compressed within the span of a single week as charming, gregarious bartender Malcolm and his conscientious lawyer wife Jess confront the longtime fissures in their union and the many dreams deferred