“An extraordinary achievement. The Amendments is about a lot of things: love, family, girlhood, growing up, sex, legacy, compassion –all blended into a moving plot, expertly handled. Wonderful.” Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist and The Muse

“A smart, subtle, engrossing and moving novel that gives voice to so much that's unspoken about Ireland and about youth.”

Emma Donoghue, author of Room and Haven

“Niamh Mulvey's wonderfully compelling characters and deft, clear prose offer great pleasure to the reader. Her sense of political and cultural change is sharp, and the beauty she finds in days of struggle is haunting.'' 
Joseph O’Connor, author of My Father’s House and Star of the Sea

“Rarely has a book moved me as The Amendments has: it cuts to the heart of what it means to be human, to want, to love, to be a mother or a daughter or a woman moving through the world. I almost never make notes in a book, and yet it resonated with me so acutely that I found myself folding down pages, and returning to sentences again and again and again, marveling over how Niamh Mulvey can pin down character and feeling so astutely. It's a triumph of a book, and a vital one too: it deserves to soar.”

Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory and Circle of Wonders

“I genuinely loved The Amendments. I found it such a tender, compassionate, deeply believable novel. I'd defy any Irish woman, in particular, to read this and not feel that sense of innate recognition that all the best writing elicits.” Niamh Hargan, author of Twelve Days in May

“I loved The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey. Rare is the novel that is as significant as it is enjoyable: her characters glimmer with heart and soul, her writing is beautiful and her themes profound. It's a book about mothers and daughters, friendship, hope, bravery and what it means to believe in something. A fantastic and important achievement.”
Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters

The Amendments is ambitious in its political thought, but also intimate and rooted in compelling relationships. Mulvey's characters are living through what are in fact revolutions, although they don’t always realise it. It's also a very original book, partly because Mulvey never lets herself do the obvious thing . . . History books tell us what happened in a certain time and place while novels tell us how it felt to be there. Niamh Mulvey’s powerful novel takes Ireland’s constitution changes, the amendments of the title, and shows what had to go on in ordinary homes across the country for them to happen; Irish people – perhaps most especially women – were trying to shake off inherited values. It is convenient, familiar and just about true enough to think of this as an unshackling, a break for autonomy, but in fact such change must have meant anxiety, dislocation sometimes triggered forms of rejection and retreat. It is not easy to lose the culture we knew, even if it enrages us. A national constitution is not an easy thing to rewrite, nor is it easy to rewrite ourselves.”

Garrett Carr, author of The Rule of the Land