Sometimes you find a book which you just can't stop reading... With this novel, Tamaro confirms her role as one of Italy's most loved writers...this book is eloquent in its simplicity, at once enjoyable and heartbreaking

Answer Me demands engagement...entertainingly grotesque

It's easy to see why Tamaro's bleakly atmospheric tales of life by the auto-strada, and her portentous pronouncements on love, life and Catholicism became such a runaway bestseller

Janice Galloway's exciting, vibrant third novel proves a virtuoso piece of storytelling...this obvious Booker contender is as compelling as the tormented players and music that inspired it

You read Clara and you catch the music of another mind, and wherever it comes from Janice Galloway plays the notes to what sounds very much like perfection. This is a virtuoso performance

A novel dizzy with lyrical passages and pulsating with the musical passion of Clara's complicated, tragic love for her husband Robert Schumann

Her limpid prose style is so seductive and so beautiful a fine meditation on art, love and loss...