Author:Elizabeth Bowen,Nadia Albina
Brought to you by Penguin.
It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air.
Stella discovers that her lover Robert is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself.
Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.
© Elizabeth Bowen 1948 (P) Penguin Audio 2021
Probably the most intelligent noir ever written...The situation is surreal, the psychologizing profound, and the eerie inwardness trapped in Bowen's distinctive prose resonates inside a peculiar silence that fills the reader's heart with dread
—— Los Angeles TimesOne of three quintessential London 'war' novels, the others being Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. No other novel conjures the spooky solemnity of the Blitz so adroitly
—— Time OutA tensely charged story of betrayal
—— IndependentMarvellously witty, poetic and socially perceptive novels... she is bang on form with The Heat of the Day
—— John Bayley , IndependentThis world reminds you of both Henry James and Graham Greene...a world both placid and violently fractured...Bowen's prose is crisp and precise, but also suggestive and haunting...She combines moral refinement and pitiless but compasionate understanding
—— Sunday TimesA haunting novel of bad faith and betrayal
—— GuardianBrilliant descriptions of London during the Blitz
—— Spectator[Bowen] startles us by sheer originality of mind and boldness of sensibility into seeking our world afresh. . . . Out of the plainest things--the drawing of a curtain--she can make something electric and urgent
—— V. S. PritchettDense as a poem with symbol and suggestion. . . The work of a writer [of] rich and winning gifts
—— TimeImagine a Graham Greene thriller projected through the sensibility of Virginia Woolf
—— Atlantic Monthlya book of signal wit and beauty that shows many ways of being a woman under intolerable strain... The electrifying ubiquity of danger - the novel is set in London under the Blitz - summons tenderness and the appetite for life. London itself breathes, turns and glows throughout
—— Candia McWilliam , The LadyA beautifully written thriller
—— James Moran , TabletAbsorbing
—— RAF NewsAn atmospheric portrayal of the pity of the war
—— The Times, *Books of the Year*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
—— Church TimesA compulsive and supremely intelligent thriller from a master stylist
—— Michael Marshall, author of The Straw Men , -An intriguing thriller
—— Literary ReviewMesmerising, surefooted, vividly realised . . . something special in the arena of international thrillers
—— Financial TimesEven better than Child 44 . . . A blizzard of exciting set pieces, superbly realized
—— Daily TelegraphAn extraordinarily atmospheric and immersive read ... escapism at its best
—— Good HousekeepingSo 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
—— Marian Keyes , -The thriller of the summer ... Grimwood raises the stakes in this dark, twisty tale
—— iPaperFact and fiction merge in what they used to call a rip-roaring yarn that is totally credible. Excellent.
—— The SunAmbitious, intricately detailed, rich and considered
—— INDEPENDENTA WOMAN'S WEEKLY BOOK CLUB READ
—— MY WEEKLYDaringly ambitious... a novel that invites the reader to immerse themselves in the sweep of history, the rich and detailed research... breathtaking
—— OBSERVERGreat 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
—— PEOPLE MAGAZINEGlitz 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
—— THE SPOKESMAN REVIEWMesmerizing
—— TATLERAn 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
—— REBECCA JONES, BBC ARTS CORRESPONDENTA generous, escapist treat
—— i-PAPER, 30 BEST BOOKS FOR SUMMERA soaring epic of female adventure and wanderlust
—— GUARDIANBestselling 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
—— L A TIMESRelentlessly 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?
—— WASHINGTON POSTDazzling 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
—— BOSTON GLOBESwinging from one century to the next, from the moneyed splendor of cities to the shifting Antarctic ice, Shipstead's prose overflows with meticulous detail
—— MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNEEnthralling. Moving and surprising at every turn
—— GUARDIANSweepingly panoramic and immersive. An audacious epic
—— DAILY MAIL, 'Best Fiction of 2021'In a moment when our quarantined worlds have become so small, GREAT CIRCLE offers more than just wanderlust; it feels like a liberation.
—— ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLYMaggie Shipstead combines cinematic scope with a poet's eye for detail
—— THE TIMESThe 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.
—— TIME, BOOK OF THE YEARAbsolutely dazzling
—— NEWSWEEKThrilling
—— DAILY MAILGREAT CIRCLE flew us to a different world. A book to devour
—— TELEGRAPH, BOOK OF THE YEARA 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
—— THE ECONOMISTArtfully constructed and exhuberantly entertaining
—— THE MAIL, BOOK OF THE YEARShipstead soars in this expansive, beautiful novel about women and flight
—— THE STRAITS TIMESEngrossing, ambitious, beautifully written
—— DAILY EXPESS, Summer ReadingCompletely engrossing from the very first page. You won't be able to put this down
—— HELLO MAGAZINE