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 * * Vivid and memorable . . . [ Kate Grenville] offers us the ambivalence and complex textures of experience without losing the rhythm and pace of realist fiction -- SARAH MOSS * * Times Literary Supplement * * 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 * * 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 * * 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 * * A memorable portrait of a proto-feminist determined to free herself from society's expectations * * Sunday Times * * 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 * * 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 * * Praise for Kate Grenville: Beautifully written, insistently eloquent and expressive of connection . . . [ a] stunning literary achievement * * Guardian * * Kate Grenville spins a delicately teasing novel about the inherent untrustworthiness of the official record . . . beautiful and subtle * * Financial Times * *
