Grenville cleverly uses Elizabeth's bland and pleasant missives home, showing that they were a carefully constructed fiction. The real Elizabeth -- passionate, clever and endlessly resilient -- is brilliantly conjured-- "The Times"
A work of history, biography, story and memoir, all fused into a novel that suggests the great potential of literary art as redeemer, healer and pathway to understanding . . . the writing sparkles with Grenville's gift for transcendently clear imagery-- "Guardian"
Kate Grenville gives voice to this reticent woman, allowing her smart, sparky, shrewd heroine a chance "at last to speak" . . . eloquent [and] evocative-- "Daily Mail"
Brings readers into intimate acquaintance with the lives of women in late 19th- and early 20th-century rural Australia . . . elevated by Grenville's crystalline prose-- "Globe and Mail"
A powerful novel about a woman determined to rise above her station . . . A privilege to share in Grenville's indomitable grandmother's journey-- "The Times"
A memorable portrait of a proto-feminist determined to free herself from society's expectations-- "Sunday Times"
Grenville . . . tells Dolly's story swiftly, cleanly and compassionately, all the while refusing to let this difficult, furious woman off the hook. Excellent-- "Daily Mail"
Grenville astutely portrays the friction between the heroine and her daughter, who is stung by her mother's steely reserve - perhaps because she can't see the life story we've just read-- "Mail on Sunday, Best New Fiction"
The masterful Grenville addresses the question of why this brilliant, frustrated woman struggled to express love to her children with clarity and compassion in a swift, thoroughly absorbing book-- "Mail Online"
Vivid and memorable . . . [Kate Grenville] offers us the ambivalence and complex textures of experience without losing the rhythm and pace of realist fiction-- "Times Literary Supplement"
Kate Grenville spins a delicately teasing novel about the inherent untrustworthiness of the official record . . . beautiful and subtle-- "Financial Times"
A memorable portrait of a proto-feminism determined to free herself from society's expectations-- "Sunday Times"