Lily

No writer can inhabit the skin of a historical period and bring it so pulsatingly alive as Rose Tremain. No one can break your heart quite like this. In this compassionate, generous, soaringly beautiful book, Tremain is at the top of her game. Read and be transported

Neel Mukherjee

Lily is the perfect heroine, courageous and bold

Nina Pottell, Prima

Another memorable and engrossing read from Tremain, which brings Victorian London, and especially courageous Lily, to life on the page

Joanne Finney, Good Housekeeping

Lily is an ingenious blend of historical novel, moral fable and fairy story. Tremain, a pre-eminent historical novelist, vividly evokes the disparate social worlds of Victorian London... Lily is a tale not just of revenge but of redemption, which carries an intense emotional charge. Tremain again displays her supreme ability to create characters who are at once totally true to the period and instantly identifiable to the modern reader

Financial Times

Full of evocative detail and memorable characters

Zoe West, Woman & Home

Lily, in addition to its pellucid prose, is shamelessly gripping

Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph

It's more than gratifying to open [Tremain's] new novel, Lily, and immediately see that she is still writing at full throttle... This is the literary equivalent of all your favourite Christmas telly programmes rolled into one... Lily's story is a winter's tale: a cosy pageturner that will whisk you away from the 21st century while engaging and sharpening your mind.

Melissa Katsoulis, The Times

Enthralling... Tremain evokes Victorian London with visceral intensity in a gripping and deeply humane novel exploring themes of rejection, poverty, guilt and redemption

Hannah Beckerman, Observer

Lily is a wonderful creation - diffident and trying to find her place in the world... But it's Tremain's attention to detail that really sets this novel apart

Ian Critchley, Literary Review

Tremain's latest novel more than lives up to its atmospheric, riveting beginning... It's consummate storytelling, and finds room for redemption as well as revenge

Hephzibah Anderson, Mail on Sunday

Terrific

Claire Allfree, Sunday Telegraph, *Novel of the Week*

An authentically melodramatic whydunnit set in Victorian London

Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail

Tremain has created a feisty, rebellious heroine in the style of Jane Eyre and Maggie Tulliver, in a setting that owes much to Dickens... a very engaging read

Vanessa Berridge, Daily Express

A heartbreaking story set in Victorian England from the pitch-perfect pen of Rose Tremain

Antonia Senior, The Times, *Books of the Year*

A heart-wrenching tale that blends historical detail, moral fable and fairy story with a powerful heroine at its helm

Yours, *Christmas Gift Guide 2021*

Fans of Dickens's heart-tugging Little Dorrit should enjoy this powerful exploration of the human urge to seek places of sanctuary in a pitiless, fickle world. Perfect fireside reading - but better keep a hankie ready

Rebecca Wallersteiner, Lady

Tremain brilliantly conjures up the atmosphere of Victorian London while the story is cleverly structured to keep the reader guessing to the end

Richard Hopton, Country & Town House

Tremain's gift is to create characters whose experiences span every walk of life, but who are grounded in their author's understanding of the world

Harper's Bazaar