War, love and secrecy determine the lives of De Lope's characters. There are brutal scenes, moving passages and pages that are pure poetry. An unforgettable novel

Amid the current outpouring of Civil War fiction in Spain, the books of Manuel de Lope... should be top of interested readers' lists

Reading The Wrong Blood is like surrendering to a hypnotist... The style is a marvel of precision and patience, resulting in an atmosphere so saturated with suspense that I found myself wanting to read more slowly, even as I breathlessly anticipated the next paragraph. I've seldom read a more sublime and disturbing novel

The prosody of the original language has been retained in John Cullen's translation... mesmerizing... shattering... exquisite... A book that stays with you, inviting you to read it again

elegantly poetic...the dream-like effect he achieves is immersive and moving

whatever his subject he is never less than entertaining and often enlightening into the bargain

You might expect historian Simon Schama to offer a stimulating read in his collection of essays, lectures, articles and book reviews, and he doesn't disappoint'

Furiously funny, fast, surreal. The heat and the profanity feel painfully real; the prose, masterfully stylized, definitely the stuff of fiction

Arch comedy ... Dave Eggers channels Anthony Bourdain

Depicts the literal underworld of a restaurant kitchen with wit, vigor, and gleeful, necessary profanity

Eyre has written a sumptuous, sensual tale of beauty and vanity; it's crying out for a TV adaptation.

Magical realism meets a seventeenth-century Portrait of a Marriage. To say it is dazzling would be a puritan understatement.

Persistently bizarre, fecund, technically inventive, funny – and oddly touching.

Viper Wine richly evokes Elizabethan and Jacobean language and is alert to the plight of Catholics under Elizabeth I and King James, while at the same time putting a post-modernist spin on the tight and enthralling plot. I used to be dubious about alchemy and antiquarianism, but the wit and excitement of this first novel breathes new life into them.

[A] cornucopia of a novel.

As funny as it is surreal.

This funny and exciting novel takes a fresh look at life during the excitement and danger of the 17th century.

The language is beautiful, creating fantastic images with her descriptions.

Eyre’s prose is sensuous and rich… Her recreation of the period is persuasive and alluring.

A pacy, cleverly postmodern historical novel... Viper Wine is a high-flying, high-concept mix that stylishly transmutes its wildly disparate elements into an assured, flamboyant gem.

A mad, psychedelic romp through some of history’s most fertile ground... The author’s voracious enthusiasm for eclectic, highly-researched detail is persistently entertaining, breathing new life into the genre of the historical novel. A real tonic.

Clever, lively and playful... [An] impressive first novel.

A dazzling debut… Wickedly funny.

This dazzling firework of a debut novel is a reminder of how inventive and original historical fiction can be.

Eyre pulls off a notable trick in Viper Wine, not just by reconstructing her chosen period but rendering it permeable to intrusions from other ages… Playful moments…are made all the more striking by being woven unannounced into a meticulously luscious fantasia on a theme of English high life in the 1630s.

The horrors of the beauty industry are taken apart with feline wit and the book will make you purr with pleasure.

The most richly fruited post-modern novel since Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherrys

A bold, impressive debut

As a debut novel, it is truly dazzling and Hermione Eyre has proved herself an author well worth watching out for

Profoundly moving