Absorbing memoir-cum-history ... Fraser's personal story is fascinating and the thesis arising from it an arresting one ... What Fraser can teach all of us, whatever our beliefs or lack of them, is how enriching it can be to look at the world through the eyes of others.

Intensely moving, luminous and rather magnificent.

There is much that is intriguing here ... There are beautiful moments, as when Fraser's youngest son is baptised in the River Jordan.

This is a rare and extraordinary book - part autobiography, part religious reflection, part ghost story. With excoriating self-revelation, it explores the fault-lines and liminal areas between two great faiths, between the chosen and the excluded. As a voyage of self-understanding, it is compellingly written. It is that most improbable of books - a theological page-turner.

I spent all day reading this book, unable to stop. So joyously eclectic, so bitingly honest, such a startling mingling of the vulnerable with the intellectual, the search with the homecoming. I cried, I laughed, and most of all I thought. This is such an incredibly important and necessary book.

A fascinating hybrid of past, present and future, Chosen reflects Giles Fraser's astounding capacity for honesty, turbocharged articulation and spiritual insight. He explains beautifully the interweaving of Christianity and Judaism that will resonate with many, and not just those from mixed religious backgrounds. His scholarly explanations and personal explorations brought me much wisdom. A tour de force.

Beautifully written, very moving ... These stories have not just personal reflections, but deep and imaginative theological insights ... A brilliant working out of the family hurts and misunderstandings that haunt the interplay between Christianity and Judaism.

A compelling account of a personal, religious, and philosophical journey. Filled with humanity and wisdom, Chosen is a riveting and rewarding read. Highly recommended.

A glorious resurrection of one of the most misrepresented queens of England . . . finally, thanks to Leanda de Lisle's meticulous research, she has a biography worthy of her fascinating life

Henrietta Maria's remarkable life is recounted with gusto in this sharp, sparky book... it makes vivid use of recent work on her court and queenship, brings people and personalities to the fore and will be a particular delight to those new to the period

Leanda de Lisle has brilliantly overturned nearly four centuries of misogynistic, religiously bigoted and politically motivated myths about Henrietta Maria, who now emerges as a fascinating, fearless, but ill-fated woman, wife and mother. This is revisionist history at its absolute best

A formidable historian

With supreme skill and style, Leanda de Lisle provides not only a welcome revision of Henrietta Maria's reputation, but also a revival of her fierce energy and a reanimation of the entire age. A superb and vital biography

A captivating, richly detailed historical tale that shines a light on the hidden genius of an extraordinary woman

This is popular history of the finest kind, vivid, immediate, well researched and telling a compelling story. It is also serves the first duty of biography, by making its subject more wholly understandable than before

Leanda de Lisle's beautifully written and endlessly fascinating new biography of Henrietta Maria brings one of the 17th century's most misunderstood women to glorious life . . . This salutary and important book restores her to her rightful place as one of the most important figures of her time

If the Stuarts are having their time in the sun at last, then Leanda de Lisle is one of the reasons they are. Masterful and pleasurable about a transformative century and a neglected, underestimated woman's role in it -- what more can one want from history?

A fascinating book about a fascinating woman -- Henrietta Maria's story deserves to be better known, and this book brings her completely alive

Henietta Maria's perspective allows this book to become something much more than mere analysis of politics and war. De Lisle understands that history is a story of people; she possesses a visceral understanding of the emotions that swirled inside Henrietta Maria

[A] thrilling story... a revisionist life of one of the most compelling and controversial women in British history... a book, like a life, should be measured against its own mission. And in this - to tell the story of Henrietta Maria's extraordinary life from her own perspective - Leanda de Lisle triumphs where her subject could not

Lucid, entertaining and combative revisionist biography

A triumph of a book which will revise opinion of this 'reviled' queen

Thanks to Leanda de Lisle's new biography, Henrietta Maria can finally answer the charges laid against her. In debunking and deconstructing these myths de Lisle gives an account of the politics of the time

The much-maligned Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, is thrillingly reassessed in de Lisle’s lyrical biography

Harrowing but excruciatingly funny

[A] blazing debut... Electric from page one

Scabrously funny... Were his account a novel, you might accuse it of being too far-fetched

His remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written memoir brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing

Original Sins is a memoir that reads like a novel; a brilliant one. Matt Rowland Hill's struggle to overcome the perfect storm of his upbringing and addiction makes for a great story, but it's the blend of artistry, wit and skilfully timed stabs of brutality that make it such a vivid and thrilling experience. It's not that I didn't want to put the book down, more that it wouldn't release me from its grip

Brilliant... lively, engaging and extremely well written - scrupulously, painfully honest... sharply funny