She makes us read on, our hearts in our mouths, to see how a twice-told story will turn out this time

The intricacy with which Winterson has plotted her novel against each Shakespearean detail will delight readers familiar with the original … it’s part of a vision of a world in which past, present, and future are lived simultaneously, original and adaptation existing in the same moment.

A book of considerable beauty… Winterson’s fiction is a fine invitation into this deeply Shakespearean vision of imagination as the best kind of truth-telling

Winterson’s stage, like that of Shakespeare, is filled with wonders

Winterson is faithful to both the narrative and the spirit of the play, while transposing it to an utterly different and modern setting… There is lightness here, in the frisky prose and the author’s delight in invention, but you are never free of the awareness of dark shadows where danger and corruption lie in wait.

Clever and beautiful...it soars

A deeply felt, emotionally intelligent and serious novel, which resists easy answers and yet expresses the hope that human beings can muddle through, and that bad pasts can have good outcomes... Pulsates with such authenticity and imaginative generosity that I defy you not to engage with it.

The Winter’s Tale, one of the late, 'problem' plays, is about loss, remorse and forgiveness, and the nature of time. Winterson has captured all this with respect and affection for Shakespeare’s text, and made it new with her own bold and poetic prose and her insights into love and grief. There are passages here so concisely beautiful they give you goosebumps.

Emotionally wrought and profoundly intelligent it will pull you into its troubled, wise world of jealousy, paranoia, grief, revenge and forgiveness in some of the most stunning prose you’ll read this year … Winterson masterfully interweaves layers of narrative and themes so that reading the novel is like listening to a Bach prelude and fugue … A supremely clever, compelling and emotionally affecting novel that deserves multiple readings to appreciate its many layers.

Engrossing, almost soapily addictive

The book is the first of a major new series, in which well-known novelists give Shakespeare a modern twist, and Winterson rises to the challenge with some ingenious touches.

Astonishing.

Smart and witty... Compelling, entertaining and elegant

Moving, pacy... A clever book that explores themes of love, loss and forgiveness as parents screw up their children and do the unthinkable. A thrilling read.

There are passages here so concisely beautiful they give you goosebumps

One of the most gifted writers working today... A shining delight of a novel... Winterson's great gift is in capturing the emotional heft of her stories with sentences that hum along, beautiful, unexpected and swift. Winterson wrestles wonderfully with a perplexing text and emerges with a complicated, satisfying and contemporary tale that stands wholly on its own.

With a few deft strokes Winterson creates Shakespeare’s characters in contemporary clothing keeping me in suspense throughout. It is a triumph and a good omen for this ambitious new project.

Reading Jeanette Winterson takes you to a place where words have power, and are capable of transforming people's lives.

[A] witty and funky adaptation

Winterson largely and ingeniously stays faithful to Shakespeare’s magical realist plot… and captures the play’s quizzical, questioning, redemptive spirit while remaining impressively true to her own.

Wonderfully imaginative

Spins through an exhilarating array of genres. The sensational opening chapter enmeshes the reader in a rollercoaster ride of tragedy, comedy, thriller, fantasy, chicklit, plus a few pages of raunchy sex

The Gap of Time takes nothing away from The Winter's Tale. If anything it might add to it, or at least to its resonance and mystery. It is an impressive achievement, especially as Winterson manages the contradictions of comedy and tragedy in a way which suits both their modern likelihood and their moral implications

A witty retelling.

Her new story retains the essence of Shakespeare, but filters his comedy and sentiment through feminism and technology.

Filled with her wit and seriously thought-provoking ideas, Winterson’s writing is a pleasure… This is a well told, beautiful, magical and wonderfully evocative story which resonates with our contemporary lives.

Vibrates with echoes of Shakespeare’s original.

Ambitious.

There is a lovely, lilting cadence to the novel… Stylishly done…. Winterson manages against the odds to keep us gripped.

Winterson is on sparkling form in this highly intelligent and daringly imaginative reworking of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale... Witty, clever and bold.

Winterson is incapable of being dull, and The Gap Of Time is a fitting addition to her uniquely inventive catalogue.

She deftly captures all the magic and raw emotion of the original.