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 * * 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 * * 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 * * The absorbing story of a woman discovering herself in the vast expanse of a new world, told in rich, insightful prose * * Sunday Times * * Vivid, lyrical and engrossing. Both authentic and imaginative, the voice of the female narrator quietly challenges not only conventional historical narratives but our whole idea of what history is about -- ALICE JOLLY Evocative . . . [ A] gorgeous, generous novel * * Sunday Express * * Historical fiction at its best . . . breathtaking . . . [ Elizabeth is a] plucky, sharp-minded young woman * * Good Housekeeping * * Elizabeth Macarthur manages her complicated life with spirit and passion, cunning and sly wit . . . Kate Grenville's return to the territory of The Secret River is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand by one of our most original writers * * Australian Arts Review * * An imaginative depiction of a relationship forged in the earliest days of the Australian colony . . . an engaging book -- ERICA WAGNER * * Guardian * *
