5 stars

Touching ... a quiet, gentle, moving novel. Joyce's writing has a simplicity that sings and she captures hope best of all.

If you loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, you'll be thrilled with this sequel.

Invest in a box of Kleenex before you start this tear-jerker - [one of] this month's big reads.

A beautiful story which will grip you, make you laugh and cry, uplift your spirit and leave you feeling profoundly grateful and changed by the reading experience ... This is a wonderful book about loss, redemption and joy – and I give it my own prize.

A delightful read. ... Joyful moments and gentle comedy.. an uplifting and moving companion to Harold Fry

Since finishing the two books, I often found myself wistfully wishing for another glimpse into Harold and Queenie’s world.

A beautiful book ... both desperately sad and sweetly uplifting - even funny... I really did love it.

Joyce's poignant tale of Harold and Queenie will stay with us for a long time to come.

If you loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry you'll be thrilled with this sequel.

A hot read

a lesson in gentle restraint

Must read: a funny emotional story

Good though The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is, this is better ....with an even more engaging central character, it will be a hard-hearted reader who can finish it without tears.

An extraordinarily touching portrait - all dangers of sentimentality are banished by a final twist that makes you realise that what you've been reading is even sadder, and far tougher, than it seemed.

The author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry hits a darker but no less compelling note ... However, the book is not without its own pleasurable uplift: a spiritual wind beneath its wings … perhaps it adds necessary ballast to the sparkling balloon of Harold's journey – and it will certainly find a grateful readership.

[With] gently comic moments and [the] pitch-perfect black humour that Joyce writes so well ... It is not necessary to read Harold’s story before reading Queenie’s to enjoy this bittersweet novel which is a pleasure in its own right. However, reading both will only serve to double that pleasure.

This tender, funny tragic novel guides you to a point of emotion rarely found in modern fiction and the wonderful ending is truly uplifting.

Joyce accomplishes the rare feat of endowing her continuing narrative with as much pathos and warmth, wisdom and poignancy as her debut. Harold was beloved by millions; Queenie will be, too.

A fantastic book about an extraordinary life.

Once again Rachel Joyce writes so gripping and moving that you take the charaters to your heart immediately.

With an enchanting, poetic language Rachel Joyce writes about the fundamental questions of life and death.

Like Harold Fry, Queenie is delightful and dark. Death, duty and regret shadow nearly every page, but the darkness is not unrelenting; there is humor, and there is light.

This lovely book is full of joy. Much more than the story of a woman’s enduring love for an ordinary, flawed man, it’s an ode to messy, imperfect, glorious, unsung humanity ... Her love song is for us. Thank you, Rachel Joyce.

[A] deeply affecting novel…Culminating in a shattering revelation, her tale is funny, sad, hopeful: She’s bound for death, but full of life.

A moving, lyrical read about life, love and saying goodbye. this is a companion story to the similarly entrancing The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, but could be read alone.