Edward Rutherfurd's grand novel weaves together the great events of English history ... he pulls off some remarkable effects

Few literary novels tell us as much about the history of modern humans, or have such clarity

London could hook you on history for life ... 800 pages of hold-your-breath suspense, buccaneering adventure, and passionate tales of love and war set in London from the birth of time to the present day

I thoroughly recommend the book, written by a collection of top-hole experts in their field... Excellent

[A World By Itself] tells how a small group of islands on the rain-swept edge of the Roman Empire came to shape the civilised world, effectively inventing parliamentary democracy, industrialisation, free trade and globalisation, as well as bequeathing to posterity the greatest body of literature on earth

A massive work of scholarship

Compelling

Impressive

A Royal Affair is an entertaining tale ...Tillyard's account of the brothers is heroic...[she] tells this astonishing tale with bravura

She has returned to what she knows-and does-best, teasing out the bonds of love, hate and pretend indifference that bind siblings, no matter what their historical pedigree, into a cat's cradle of consequence

The story is brilliantly told. In its descriptive flourishes it is sometimes fearlessly novelistic, yet it travels long distances for scholarly scruples