Hello everyone – we're back, after an extended summer break which had nothing to do with sitting idly in the sun, and everything to do with our attempts to bring the Edinburgh International Book Festival to an, erm, international audience.

But we've still been reading and appreciating your reviews – not least all those nominations for the Not the Booker prize. Earlier in August, no fewer than six readers raved about Kerry Hudson's Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, which has since gone on to make the longlist for the Guardian first book award. AlexPhillips was impressed by a novel that is "hard-hitting but in such a manner as to defy pity" – not an easy feat for a story that could so easily have collapsed into winsomeness, were it not for the "potty-mouth" of the central character, Janie, and Hudson's knack of capturing "the gritty, seedy side of life, where dreams are things that people who are better off can have". I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody makes of the other books on the First book award list.

This week's reviews include an account of Sadie Jones's The Uninvited Guests from stpauli which manages to dramatise her own changing opinion of the novel as she read it. The country pile heirs and graces held little charm at first, she writes, but as the plot darkened, stpauli found herself hooked. "Jones has taken the brave decision of making her characters largely unlikeable at the outset, but you won't regret sticking with them."

A summer in which publishers have been as capricious as the weather – witness the unusual flurry of big books in August – has kept some readers busy. NickVirk was disappointed by Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth, which he felt was "a decent read" but lacking "the sadistic edge that is quintessential in a McEwan novel".

But it's a classic that made TomConoboy don his thinking cap. His review of Alan Garner's The Owl Service manages to honour Garner's "genius" while exposing the flaws of an old favourite from an old favourite who has been taking a late turn in the sun this summer, following the publication of his new novel, Boneland.

And that's it for this week. If we've mentioned your review, mail me on claire.armitstead@theguardian.com and I'll send you something excellent from our cupboards.