Elixir

In her captivating latest, Kassabova transports us to the Mesta River in her native Bulgaria... Kassabova finds hope that this ancient knowledge still has the power to heal us.

Bookseller, *Editor's Choice*

Humanity glitters under her gaze in all its facets. Her prose is spectacularly good and her storytelling is a joy.

Philip Marsden, author of Rising Ground

Her ability to bring out the best in her subjects is born of a genuine horror at the unsustainability of the ways we live... But Elixir is not a lecture... Like the forests and fells it inhabits, it is by turns dark and mysterious and beautiful. Ecologically minded writing can often tell too much and show too little, but Kassabova sensibly lets the landscape and locals do the talking.

Financial Times

Subtle prose that mingles empathy with perspective.

Economist

Extraordinary... She allows her book to grow and swell, like a symphony, expanding and deepening its themes until the traditional wisdom and life of the mountain envelopes you entirely. Rather like a spell, in fact.

Country Life

A laudable attempt to record an endangered region and a disappearing way of life.

Times Literary Supplement

Exceptional.

BBC Wildlife

The mark of a good book is that it changes you. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Nan Shepherd, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Jay Griffiths have all wielded that power over me, but I’ve rarely been so aware of an internal change being wrought, word by word, as I have these past days immersed in Kapka Kassabova’s alchemical prose. I fancy she had me under her spell from page one

Guardian, *Book of Day*

Uplifting and beautifully written... Elixir provides a glorious cycle of stories and personal testimonies.

Spectator

This is a book to make you feel.

Scotsman

It soars with the luminous prose and unflinching honesty we have come to expect from this brilliantly gifted writer. Elixir is an extraordinary, profoundly moving book... Her prose is breathtaking, the stories heartbreaking.

Feminism and Religion

A joyous celebration of the Pomak community in southern Bulgaria.

Spectator, *Books of the Year*