Critical Praise

“The evocation of place, and the pervading sense of sadness, are skilfully created, and the flawed humanity and depth of feeling of the characters are compelling.”

——The Times Literary Supplement

“The writing is so good and the structure so skilful that Vickers manages to make delicate and difficult notions vivid. Her territory is the faultline along which memories of loss are experienced … it is rare for a novel to present it so directly and with such success.”

—John de Falbe, The Spectator

“There is something rare and special about Vickers as a novelist. In exploring the connections between faith and imagination, art and redemption, religion and science in an intelligent, unusual but very readable way, she manages to touch something buried deep in all of us. It gives her work a compelling quality.”

—Peter Stanford, The Independent

“The lives of the characters in this gently absorbing novel continue to resonate with the failures, possibilities, regrets and redemptions --- consoled and mirrored by art --- that we all endure.”

—Carol Ann Duffy, The Daily Telegraph

“Love and pain, death and life, self knowledge and insensibility --- all these big, vital themes converge in this moving, utterly engrossing novel.”

—The Guardian

“With imagination, sensitivity, and skill, Salley Vickers gives us valuable psychological and spiritual insights about grief, regret and reconciliation.”

—Karen Armstrong, author of The Great Transformation

“Salley Vickers takes the most interesting part of the analytical process --- when something unknown becomes known, moves out of shadow into light, which is tremendously moving to read about… This is a subtle and thoughtful novel, and in the resolution there is anguish as well as calm.”

—Sebastian Faulks, author of Charlotte Gray