Although the novel is deftly plotted and the atmosphere all distorting fog and claustrophobic dugouts, its achievement lies in Gray's finely worked portraits of the pity of war - those damaged by conflict and those who have to deal with its mind-altering consequences.

Through a clever series of plot twists...Gray leads...his readers to the unexpected truth

Two Storm Wood is an impressive achievement. It sheds a powerful light on a neglected aspect of World War One history. I can't recommend it enough.

I couldn't put this down. A thriller and romance set amidst the post-Armistice battlefields and the damaged people trying to do right by the dead. Extraordinary setting, great characters, bursting with ideas.

Two Storm Wood has the literary class, intellectual depth, and thriller pacing of Robert Harris at his best--with an added spine-tingling aura of menace worthy of Stephen King. It's the most chilling portrayal of a historical period since Philip Kerr's novels of Nazi Berlin, yet at its core Gray's masterpiece is a heart-rending story of sacrifice, love and loyalty overcoming the psychological tortures of the World War I battlefields.

One of the most evocative thrillers I've ever read. The writing is superb - shades of Hollinghurst and Pat Barker combine in a taut, finely plotted mystery. The battlefield is almost a character in itself, and the presence of its dead disturbed me throughout. Be warned - this dark, intelligent story is very hard to put down. Haunting, cinematic, and utterly gripping.

Atmospheric and meticulously researched, Two Storm Wood sheds light on the horrors and the trauma that continued even after the Armistice. It is that most wonderful of creations - a novel that informs while keeping you on the edge of your seat.

An intelligent, chilling murder mystery set among the wastelands of a war-ravaged France. Deftly plotted, and also a brilliant character piece, teeming with ideas about devotion, radicalism, identity, race, and the ethics of battlefields. Mightily rewarding.

Two Storm Wood is an enthralling, enchanting, but at times also quite terrifying literary thriller. The world has been waiting for a worthy successor to Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong - now Philip Gray has delivered it. This novel really is that good. The desolate, nightmarish atmosphere of the WW1 battlefields of northern France and the aftermath of more than four years of senseless slaughter is expertly portrayed in what is both a very moving love story and fascinating mystery. A novel that demands to be read and will stay long in the reader's memory after the last page is turned. The best book I've read this year and surely a contender for literary awards.

Powerful historical fiction and a testament to war's insanity

In this poignant, intricately plotted novel, Gray succeeds in entwining two powerful tales - a love story and a hate story - in a way that, right from the shocking start, is both convincing and enthralling. He's not afraid to show the devastation of war and the unavoidability of brutality, on both an individual and a collective scale.

A beautifully written thriller

Absorbing

An atmospheric portrayal of the pity of the war

Two Storm Wood…is a book that you struggle to put down and struggle to forget… an immersive experience… Gray is a clever storyteller… brilliantly researched and completely credible. He is a master of detail

Uncanny, evocative, atmospheric

Connolly is a terrifically subtle writer... [she] slyly sweeps her readers into the period drama as tensions tauten between families and social classes

Profound and moving and completely original, with a storyline that is completely satisfying. It'll be one of those novels that stays in my mind forever... it's a work of art

I finished it in two days flat and I've never read anything quite like it

A wonderfully subtle and interesting account of the Mosley women, with a compelling voice

So atmospheric, so elegantly written . . . like Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, or like early le Carre. I really recommend it. I just disappeared into it totally

The thriller of the summer ... Grimwood raises the stakes in this dark, twisty tale

Fact and fiction merge in what they used to call a rip-roaring yarn that is totally credible. Excellent.

Ambitious, intricately detailed, rich and considered

A WOMAN'S WEEKLY BOOK CLUB READ

Daringly ambitious... a novel that invites the reader to immerse themselves in the sweep of history, the rich and detailed research... breathtaking

Great Circle is an epic trip-through Prohibition and World War II, from Montana to London to present-day Hollywood-and you'll relish every minute

Glitz and guts square off in Great Circle: a tale of two women set apart by a century, fighting to retain control of their own lives in a society that demands subservience. Shipstead is adept at writing so vividly, the reader can feel the thrill and pain of her characters. Cunningly crafted. . . richly layered, a joy to read . . . riveting

Mesmerizing

An enthralling epic about aviation and adventure. A big, baggy blast of a book bulging with sex and drugs, taking in Prohibition-era Montana, wartime London, present-day Hollywood, painting and physics. I loved it

A generous, escapist treat

A soaring epic of female adventure and wanderlust

Bestselling novelist Maggie Shipstead was struggling to depict a female adventurer. So she became one. The stakes of GREAT CIRCLE are high-for its heroine, literally life or death. Though Shipstead never learned to fly herself, she aligned with her main character Marian Graves in more important ways . . . She is interested in testing her limits

Relentlessly exciting . . . My top recommendation for this summer. Shipstead's sweeping new female-centered epic intertwines the story of Marian, an aviator who wants to circumnavigate the globe with that of actor Hadley Baxter, cast a century later to play Marian in a film. What can Marian's life tell Hadley about her own?

Dazzling prose in the service of an expansive story that covers more than a century and seems to encapsulate the whole wide world. With detailed brilliance, she lavishes heart and empathy on every character. She never wavers, pulls out a twist or two that feel fully earned, and then sticks the landing

Swinging from one century to the next, from the moneyed splendor of cities to the shifting Antarctic ice, Shipstead's prose overflows with meticulous detail

Enthralling. Moving and surprising at every turn

Sweepingly panoramic and immersive. An audacious epic

In a moment when our quarantined worlds have become so small, GREAT CIRCLE offers more than just wanderlust; it feels like a liberation.

Maggie Shipstead combines cinematic scope with a poet's eye for detail

The beginning of Maggie Shipstead's astounding novel, a Booker finalist, includes a series of endings: two plane crashes, a sunken ship and several people dead. The bad luck continues when one of the ship's young survivors, Marian, grows up to become a pilot-only to disappear on the job. Shipstead unravels parallel narratives, Marian's and that of another woman whose life is changed by Marian's story, in glorious detail. Every character, whether mentioned once or 50 times, has a specific, necessary presence. It's a narrative made to be devoured, one that is both timeless and satisfying.

Absolutely dazzling

Thrilling

GREAT CIRCLE flew us to a different world. A book to devour

A sweeping saga that alternates between the life of a tenacious female aviator in the 1930s and that of a millennial film star cast to play her in a biopic. In death, 'each of us destroys the world,' the author observes - but her engrossing novel is a moving reflection on the will to survive

Artfully constructed and exhuberantly entertaining

Shipstead soars in this expansive, beautiful novel about women and flight

Engrossing, ambitious, beautifully written

Completely engrossing from the very first page. You won't be able to put this down