Of all the contemporary novelists who are compared to Dickens, Susan Hill probably has the best claim....Hill has produced another perfectly controlled work of fiction... What is striking about the best of Hill's fiction...is her almost Bachian ability to plumb the depths of emotion and bring the reader back out again

Hill impresses without seeking to astonish, and so is one of those rare writers whose work is brilliant in the single, secondary sense- not glittering, but distinguished- her prose as pleasing and surprising, say, as a perfectly round stone, or home-cooked haute cuisine

Hill's writing here is superb, conveying emotion and pain in the sparest of prose...a comforting keenly moving tale of endurance and the eternal springs of friendship and love

It has a power beyond its pages; a haunting resonance between each stark sentence that stayed with me long after I'd turned the final page.The delicate balance between kindness and bitterness, hope and despair, a dying man and a dying town, are almost unbearably poignant. This is a short book that will live long in the memory

Concisely captures primal emotions and offers astonishing transformations... Movingly perceptive

I read this short novel in one sitting; it is an enthralling story, touching and ultimately positive

Susan Hill is the mistress of subtle atmosphere

Moving study of faith and humanity

Beautiful novel

A bittersweet family drama set in an English industrial town

Richly satisfying

The legendary Ms Trollope triumphs yet again, with her latest slick of classy chick-lit

This thoroughly engaging, intelligent, literate novel

The brilliantly observed portrayal of family life is wonderfully compelling - and a story many will be able to identify with. ****