In recent years. a cross-cultural genre of British fiction has evolved out of [an] urban ethnic ferment. Hip-hop savvy and brocaded with Jamaican expressions... it crackles with reflections on race, migration and music... [This novel presents] a view of urban Britain as a multi-shaded community of peoples, both parochial and international in its collision of African, European and West Indian cultures. Soothing Music for Stray Cats... studded with slang... is a mockingly funny London novel... influenced by Knut Hamsun['s]... novel Hunger... Jayne Joso, who has lived and worked in Japan, is well placed to note the vagaries of mixed-up, mixed-race Britain. Soothing Music for Stray Cats, named after an album of retro doo-wop and swing by the Liverpool singer-songwriter Edgar “Jones” Jones, may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels. Ian Thomson, Times Literary Supplement, April 09

Awesome... an absolute gem. Jayne Joso is an extraordinary writer of fiction. Fresh, invigorating, engaging - [Mark is] one of the most triumphantly-realised characters out there... I can almost feel him breathing... how [Joso] can put herself so profoundly into the head of a member of the opposite sex is beyond me. Joyful... this is a novel that MUST be bought... stands as a prime example why readers should never shy away from [either]... new writers or... smaller independent publishers.Rob Burdock, robaroundbooks.com

A richly comic debut novel of youthful dreams and adult despair, told with rough charm... a generous and engaging novel which embraces the extremes of human experience so thoughtfully and yet so lightly. Emma Rae, Planet

A weird and wonderful ride of sing-alongs, “top sounds” and finding soulmates on public transport... [which is] about finding consolation and solidarity in the strangest of places. What I liked about the novel is the way it balances life's little niggles – direct debits, shocking music collections, the North-South divide – with the bigger questions. It reads like an urban fantasia: one of unexpected fairy-godmothers, where random acts of kindness interlink with meditations on mortality, and Samurai teachings meet floodlit cricket in the park. And it's not afraid of painting in darker tones, either... Child-like enthusiasms lend a warmth to our often self-deprecating narrator, those of a daydreamer up against a nightmarish real world. Definitely worth the read.
James Hogg, www.inpressbooks.co.uk