Fuses history and entertainment to give the dramatic effect of a novel...this truth really is stranger than fiction

Erik Larson tracks [H H Holmes] with practised journalistic skill...Highly readable

Captures the spirit of an America bursting with pioneering drive...a gripping book

An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction

Bursting with so much vitality you half expect it to jump right out of your hands

A story that flits effortlessly between the infernal and the inspired

A magnificent new life -- wonderfully funny, from its winning subtitle onwards, and full of human sympathy and understanding . . . an evocative and touching portrait of a surprisingly impressive man

The best royal biography since James Pope-Hennessy's Queen Mary (1959) . . . rivetingly interesting . . . sheds an entirely new light on both George V and his consort . . . Jane Ridley persuades us that their tactful handling of the many crises of the reign paved the way for the stable constitutional monarchy that persists to this day

Splendid

Jane Ridley is a consummate storyteller and superb researcher. With a funny, analytical, sympathetic touch she both conveys the immediacy of history and invests those elusive, long-ago events and mysterious, long-dead people with a humanity recognisable to us all

A big beautiful beast of a book. Fair, thorough and unexpectedly funny, it won't be surpassed for decades

Jane Ridley has written the definitive biography of George V. Sharply observed, revealing and very absorbing, 'dull George' and his dutiful wife, Mary, emerge in a new light as the monarchies of Europe crumble around them and the horrors of the early twentieth century unfold. At a pivotal time in the history of our democracy, with world leaders tested to their limits, Jane gives a gripping and authoritative account of what was happening behind palace doors

A truly inspirational new biography of George V

A superb book; arguably it is the best biography of George V... immensely readable, wonderfully researched

Ridley is good on the telling detail . . . lively and unstuffy

[George V] is candid, well written, based on wide research and full of piquant detail, some of it new

This deeply researched biography casts new light upon the misunderstood monarch and his Queen, Mary of Teck. Illuminating, intensely readable

Sparkling

Riveting... Ridley brings new insight to George's personal life... Well-researched and entertaining, this book offers a vluable reassessment of a king who shaped modern Britain

[A] graceful, funny book... Ridley offers fine-grained and astute sketches of members of the king's entourage as they came and went

Outstanding . . . richly entertaining

A gifted writer (een begenadigd schrijver)

The book which impressed me most, and which I most enjoyed, this year is Andrew Roberts's George III. It is based on such astonishingly wide-ranging and original research that I felt I was reading about the period for the first time. Unknown facts and wonderful anecdotes had me turning the pages with a curiosity I seldom feel when reading about supposedly familiar events. Andrew Roberts is remarkably even-handed, and there is no special pleading on behalf of this genuinely misunderstood and wilfully misrepresented monarch who did his best to be a good constitutional ruler during a very choppy period in British history.

meticulously researched ... an eye-opening portrait of the man and his times

A deep, expansive study not only of George III but also of the political and social complexities of England and the United States during his reign.

a deeply textured portrait of George III [and] a capacious, prodigiously researched biography from a top-shelf historian.

an outstanding and surprisingly moving portrait of a misunderstood king, distinguished by refreshing revisionism but also illuminated by deep humanity.

Roberts is in a rich vein of form at present; after bestselling books on Napoleon and Churchill, yet another masterpiece has tumbled from his pen.

Roberts has been justly acclaimed as one of his generation's leading historians ... His new biography seeks to challenge popular myths about the monarch. ... Roberts, employing the same flair for original research and ability to convey historical context and vivid prose that he used in previous books ... thoroughly debunks all the assumptions most people have about the king.

exhaustively researched and written in accessible, non-jargony prose. Meticulous and forensic, it sometimes reads like a defense counsel's case for his client ... Roberts's defense of George III, though, is the fullest, the clearest, and likely to be the most definitive.

Roberts has painted a masterful portrait of a patriotic, diligent and cultivated monarch. ... This new biography is a treasure-house of detail. ... George III is an engaging, humane and at times beautiful testament to the importance of giving our ancestors a fair hearing.