A must-read for lovers of Dilly Court's books - she describes what's happening so vividly you can feel and smell what she writes and draws you into the everyday life of her characters

This book brought home wonderfully the vivid camaraderie wartime women shared and their immense sacrifices on the Home Front. Well done Daisy for creating characters that are real women in the best sense. Funny, scheming, loyal and witty, but about all, hardworking and proud. An absolute joy to read

Feisty young women, a country house in wartime and a scheming aristocrat - all ingredients for a cracking story with truly endearing characters

This is her best yet. I devoured it in one sitting - it's a real page turner that will delight and tug at the heart strings of readers everywhere. Wonderful!

If you’re looking for a poetic, spare, sometimes funny tale of ordinary people pining for meaningful connections — or if you’re someone who wishes Raymond Carver had published a novel — you have arrived.

This kaleidoscopic debut novel... deftly skips back and forth through the decades, sometimes summarizing a life in a few paragraphs, sometimes spending pages on one conversation. As one character observes, "We move in circles in this life."

[A] remarkable debut novel... There is a confidence to Porter's writing that makes it hard to believe that this is her first novel... The Travelers succeeds because Porter is so clear-eyed when documenting human interactions, the mass of particularities amounting to a gloriously and depressingly messy picture of life in America.

American history comes to vivid, engaging life in this tale of two interconnected families (one white, one black)… the complex, beautifully drawn characters are unique and indelible.

A sprawling, ambitious debut ... Beautifully written and intricately plotted.

An absolute wonder of a novel. A sweeping examination of race and class within America's troubled history. A love letter to fearless women laced with a sharp humour. I'm thrilled by the magnitude, ingenuity and heart of Regina Porter's daring vision.

In this innovative and deeply moving debut, Regina Porter has mastered the kind of alchemy found in a great painting by Poussin: her canvas is vast, her subject ambitious, and yet her execution is so brilliantly devoted to particulars that it creates a miraculous intimacy. The beauty of this book lies in how Porter's characters, through resilience and community, art and creative love, cut new doors out of the corners they've been backed into by history.

Thrillingly ambitious, deeply affecting ... There is so much offered here – race, history, love, loss, and family, just to name a few – that this debut novel should be considered nothing less than a supreme act of generosity.

The Travelers is a great, grand tabernacle of a novel, under the roof of which it seems the entire history of the United States and all its people has been gathered into a single blazing congregation. It is full of tales tall and short, lives black, white, and every shade between, from the north, the south, east, and west. None but the biggest-hearted, sharpest-eyed, most generous-spirited of writers could pull off a book like this. Regina Porter is some kind of visionary.

Regina Porter’s The Travelers is not only the compelling intergenerational saga of two intertwining families but also a deadpan and mordant chronicle of 20th-century America’s casual intolerance and racial violence, as well as a series of portraits of intrepid women, a celebration of family responsibility, and an impassioned reminder that we most honor those we loved by continuing to love others.

In The Travelers, generations of two families – one black and one white – journey across time, race, geography and the wounds of history with sweeping breadth and disarming intimacy. Porter's debut signals the arrival of a fully formed, singular talent. You've been wanting to read this book for a long time; it's just that Porter hadn't written it yet.

Irresistible comfort read

Tissues are essential. You'll ricochet between delicately watering eyes at the romance of it all and howling sobs at the unbearable tenderness

Honest and beautifully written

Noble specialises in warm-hearted tearjerkers with strong connections between women

A moving and warm-hearted novel about love in all its forms . . . Nobody weaves a complex web of stories with quite the same skill as Elizabeth Noble

Witty, affectionate and unashamedly tear-jerking

Witty, pacy and immediately engaging

It would be a hard heart indeed that remained unmoved . . . the tender feelings that Noble engenders in her readers are to be cherished

So fluid, the pages turn themselves

Noble is a mistress of the tearjerking message of love

A confident and restrained depiction of friendship… A memorable novel.

A moving study of human emotions which will make you cry without being even slightly sentimental.

Beautifully written, this is a book to savour.

Tender yet sharp, this beautifully composed narrative explores the themes of unrequited love… Tremain has crafted a stunning and wise book that sustains its brilliance right to the end.

Captivating novel… Illuminated throughout by Tremain’s own empathy, this beautiful book holds the reader effortlessly in its thrall.

What I love about Rose Tremain is her dark elegance.

The awfulness of childhood has rarely been so beautifully caught… A deep compassion for the suffering of her characters…makes this novel a beautiful and moving work of art.

Tender new novel… Tremain details the physical toll of heartbreak and this is laced with sadness as happiness eludes. But we feel for Gustav, we want him to break free, to attain it. Crucially, through Tremain’s crafting, we have hope for him, all is not lost.

Tremain is a consummate storyteller… There are few great dramas here, just a moving study of human emotions that’s full of compassion for even its most unappealing characters’

Turns the unpromising complexities of Swiss neutrality into something more captivating… Tremain plays clever variations on the ideas of distancing and self-denial.

A perceptive and beautifully realized novel of unrequited and misplaced love… A vivid book, alive with different kinds of passion… Written with immense tenderness, and is often extremely funny.

[A] perfect gem of a novel.

Powerfully subtle look at love and rejection in the shadow of war.

Assured and skilfully executed - I loved it

A chilling tale.

This is a perfect novel about life’s imperfection… The narrative skill and subtlety are exemplary… Writing at the height of her inimitable powers. Without giving away the ending, she has the most merciful, believable and uplifting surprise in store.

Elegant

Tremain is a writer of exemplary vision and particularity. The fictional world is rendered with extraordinary vividness.

Her novels combine insight, elegance and sensuality – and this latest is no exception… It’s enthralling and at times exquisitely sad.

[A] superb new novel… She has the writerly gift of conveying tenderness by what she leaves unsaid. A composition spanning 1939 to 2002, The Gustav Sonata will surely move you to melancholy - as, indeed, does all great music’

A shrewd study of neutrality, political and personal.

I loved Rose Tremain’s The Gustav Sonata… The layers of story are engrossing and beautifully put together. A novel to savour and reread.

I find her writing very evocative and lacking in the self-indulgence that many successful novelists tend to develop… Absorbing and compelling.

Tremain was on top form with her nuanced analysis of emotional and political neutrality, The Gustav Sonata.

[A] moving and finely crafted novel about youth and friendship.

A compelling read.

I feel these characters will remain with me for a long time.

Tremain’s finest work yet.

Tremain’s sympathetic and perceptive treatment of her characters probes the essence of human relationships.

The Gustav Sonata is a powerful, profound and unexpected love story about the enduring damage of unrequited love. It is a masterful, meditative novel.

It is a story of betrayal… A moving, human and memorable novel.

The novel powerfully explores the implications of a country’s quest for neutrality as well as an individual’s quest for self-mastery, touching upon the difficulties and social tensions that may arise.

Captivating.

I was totally engrossed by this beautiful novel about life’s imperfection