Hot Stew

''Ambitious, clever, brilliant and very funny . . . If Elmet announced the arrival of a bright new voice in British literature, Hot Stew confirms Mozley as a writer of extraordinary empathic gifts'' Observer

''A dazzling Dickensian tale. . . In an age when so many novelists of Mozley''s generation take refuge in the dystopian, she has reinvigorated large-scale social realism for our times'' Guardian, Book of the Day

''Where the mystical, elemental qualities of Elmet earned it comparisons with Lawrence and Hardy, her second novel is a sprawling urban comedy more likely to recall Ben Jonson or Dickens'' Daily Telegraph

''Did you know in Tudor times all the brothels were south of the river in Southwark and it was only much later that they moved up this way to Soho. Stews, they were called then.''

Pungent, steamy, insatiable Soho; the only part of London that truly never sle