Rees's story is certainly gripping - slavers used all sorts of ruses to evade capture, from running up a different flag (only certain countries had legal agreements with Britain) to simply throwing slaves overboard (early on, slave ships could be impounded only if the 'cargo' were actually on board)

Sian Rees combines thorough research and strong storytelling in Sweet Water and Bitter

A packed history of bounty-hunting and piracy, of high principle and low skulduggery, of roiling surf and disease-infested swamps and of the seemingly endless African coast

A compelling and moving tale

A fluent and lively account

extensive knowledge...uses her sources to good effect

Fascinating history...Sian Rees is to be congratulated on telling the story so vividly

All in all it is a complex tale of cruelty, skulduggery, diplomacy, high principles, naval action and the like, but all held together well and told very readably

The book is a joy to read: well-written and fast-paced... Rees succeeds admirably in bringing to life the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade...

A live and amusing... interesting and entertaining read

The author of Suite Francaise had a life as dramatic and as tragic as her fiction

A fascinating biography

This book is excellent

This dramatic biography recreates her tragic life and the turbulent times in which she lived...Nemirovsky is one of those rare writers whose life is every bit as interesting as her work

This is a scholarly biography of a literary paragon... It is saturated with her writings, revealing her passions, hubris, moods and anxieties, as well as her thoughts of fiction, Jewishness and mothers... Russian social history, anti-Semitism and the Vichy regime's collusion with the Nazis are handled adroitly

a terrifically entertaining read

extremely diverting, essentially kind-hearted and well written