Edith Eva Eger is my kind of hero… rather than let her painful past destroy her, she chose to transform it into a powerful gift – one she uses to help others heal

Dr Eger’s life reveals our capacity to transcend even the greatest of horrors and to use that suffering for the benefit of others. She has found true freedom and forgiveness and shows us how we can as well

I’ll be forever changed by Dr. Eger’s story… we all have the ability to pay attention to what we’ve lost, or to pay attention to what we still have

Wise and provocative

Dr Edith Eger knows better than most how trauma and sadness can affect us all. This hopeful and helpful book explains how rather than limiting us they can transform our lives. An essential read for tough times

Hopeful and helpful

This woman will change your life ... The Gift should be required reading for all humans

The Gift is quite simply a phenomenal read and in my view a must-read for all of us

Stanley shows us Edo's back alleys, offering a portrait of a city just before its cultural life was flooded with western influences, and it transformed into the Tokyo of today.

Absorbing...A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy.

Stranger in the Shogun's City is as close to a novel as responsible history can be...What makes the book so captivating are not merely Tsuneno's stubborn attempts at self-determination, but also Stanley's enviable ability to make us feel as if we lived in 19th-century Edo with her.

A fascinating exploration of one woman's life in 19th-century Japan... Stanley paints a vivid picture of life in noisy, crowded Edo

A portrait of an era as much as of a woman

An extraordinary woman at an extraordinary time, Tsuneno's life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture - and a rare view of a woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, despite social convention

A fascinating portrait of the shogunate dictatorship

Amy Stanley digs into the archive to uncover the life of one 19th-century Japanese woman. But Tsuneno, the daughter of a temple priest, was no ordinary woman: she married four times, had no children and fled to the big city of Edo. This is a portrait of an era as much as of a woman

Tsuneno's Edo was a place to make a new beginning - but it was also dangerous, alienating to outsiders and a source of disease. Stanley describes backstreet tenements, pawn shops and pedlars, famines and rice riot . . . Like a Dickens character, she was carried on the uncertain currents of urban life into the company of both the lofty and the lowly

In A Stranger in the Shogun's City, Amy Stanley takes readers on an immersive and revelatory journey through 19th-century Japan

Well-researched and cleverly constructed... An intriguing and little-known chapter of literary history is brought to life with brio.

A proto-feminist Mad Men transposed to the world of international espionage – all mid-century style and intrigue set against real, indelible history.

Triumphant ... This debut shines as spy story, publication thriller and historical romance with a twist.

How does Lara Prescott manage to do so much in one book? The Secrets We Kept is stylish, thrilling, smart, vivid, at once intimate and sweeping, dreamlike and true-to-life, with an unforgettable cast and story. This is a riveting novel about a riveting novel, a love story to love stories.

As lively and vivid a novel as even the most demanding reader could wish for: epic in scope, deliciously meaty with its wide array of characters and milieux, and utterly convincing in its treatment of Cold War espionage and intrigue. This marvelous novel reads like the work of a mid-career master; what a wonderful surprise, then, to realize it's the opening salvo from a supremely gifted debut novelist. Lara Prescott is the real deal, and the evidence is right here on every page.

I was riveted by Lara Prescott’s new novel. I barely stirred from my chair for two days. How does one even begin to talk about this book? It’s all here—the KGB versus the CIA, the sexual office politics of Mad Men, a horrifying new look at the gulag, the tragic love affair between Boris Pasternak and his mistress, a brilliantly-drawn portrait of a time when a single book had the power to change history. I predict that The Secrets We Kept will be one of the most important books of the year.

Lara Prescott’s The Secrets We Kept is trenchant, timely, and compulsively readable. The book thrillingly recalls the period detail of Mad Men, the complex characters of Patricia Highsmith, and the satisfying plots of John le Carre, but ultimately it’s Prescott’s distinctive voice and vision that feel most stirring and relevant. This is a first-rate novel, and it signals the arrival of a major new writer.

The whirl of trench coats and cocktails and midnight meetings on park benches has the heady whiff of classic old-fashioned spy storytelling, brilliantly filtered through Prescott’s thoroughly modern lens.

Sweeping between Russia and Washington, this captivating novel is so assured it’s hard to believe it’s a debut. And it is very easy to see why there’s such a huge buzz about it.

Wholly original and brilliantly realised, The Secrets We Kept hymns the subversive power of great prose whilst ratcheting up the tension with masterly technique.

This is a fascinating story... What is entirely Prescott's own is the story of Irina, and her fellow, more experience, spy Sally Forrester. Sally is a particularly affecting character, and, since this is a book about spies, there is the usual complement of lies and double crossings. Woven into the narrative intrigue are a number of touching love stories, including one which allows Prescott to explore how the McCarthyite "Red Scare" found echoes in a widespread paranoia about gays and lesbians in the US government.

A fascinating fictionalisation.

In this stylish and confident debut novel, we delve into the story behind the story, which is just as enthralling.

It draws the reader into the emotional lives of the characters and their ever-changing roles and personas.

All the pre-publication hype is fully justifiedas American author Prescott’s debut novel turns out to be a truly wonderful blend of historical romance, spy thriller and insights into the myriad aspects of love in troubled times… Loved it.

It transported me back in time and kept me utterly gripped from beginning to end.

An astonishingly accomplished debut: original, fiercely intelligent, pointedly witty, utterly thrilling and gripping. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this is an epic novel worthy of its topic – Dr. Zhivago and the CIA plot to publish the supposed subversive work in the USSR. The Secrets We Kept is an engrossing drama that works on so many levels. Part thriller, part love story, this reimagining of historical events is very convincing, fact and fictional creativity coalesce perfectly. The result is a beguiling read; the tragedy and iniquity of the story will drain you, but there are moments of joy and triumph too… Block out a couple of days and treat yourself to a wonderful read.

No mere spy thriller, it is, as the typists say of Dr Zhivago, both “a war story and a love story... but it was the love story we remembered most".

What a book!... riveting…This unusual story is both beautifully written and deeply compelling in equal measure…I was utterly swept away by Prescott’s vivid style of writing together with her cast of strong and wonderfully convincing characters. It is rich in historical detail and covers (for me) a fascinating period in history with astonishing lucidity. This really isn’t quite the run-of-the-mill, fast-paced, heart-in-the-mouth thriller I had expected; instead it is SO much more! It is thrilling, and it is pacy, yet it is also deeply emotional and full of zest.

The Secrets We Kept is a brilliantly told story, about a piece of relatively unknown history. It is tense, enthralling and has brilliant female characters. You’ll not be able to put it down and you will think about the characters long after you finish the book. This is one of my books of the year, for sure!

If you’ve read Doctor Zhivago, you’ll get a kick out of this.

Intriguing debut novel

The plot is complicated and the narrative even more so, owing to Prescott’s decision to use multiple first-person narrators in addition to the gossipy first-person-plural voice of the C.I.A.’s pool of female typists (which, incidentally, is highly effective). And Prescott pulls all this off… Prescott’s portrait of Sally Forrester, in particular, and Sally’s love for her colleague, Irina, is emotionally sincere and Prescott acutely captures the isolation inherent in Sally’s professional, social and sexual identity.

Engaging …This is a highly readable novel about the power of literature … The pen really is mightier than the sword

Lara Prescott has managed to summon a vanished world where novels mattered and women didn’t.

Lara Prescott's dazzling debut novel is a sweeping page turner, and now a global literary sensation.

Lara Prescott's absorbing take on the Cold War spy thriller ... doesn't disappoint … Sweeping and ambitious ... It is a tautly written masterclass in blending fiction and fact.

An entertaining read