A wonderfully atmospheric novel...captivating and searingly honest... A brilliant coming of age novel

Haunting...profound...exquisitely wrought

The tangle of this unhappy family is beautifully and ruthlessly analysed... The relationship between mother and daughter is described with uncompromising lucidity... Némirovsky evokes the places of her childhood with a sensuous clarity

The Wine of Solitude is an end-of-innocence story... It is Némirovsky's powers of social observation...the implacable eye for the nuances of human conduct, that make The Wine of Solitude so memorable

Beautifully written... Her ability to evoke the feeling of time and especially place is remarkable

One of the best of her early novels... it is written with luminous intensity

This is Nemrovsky's most autobiographical novel...recalled in hauntingly atmospheric detail

It's an unerring portrait of a neglected, baleful and punitive daughter

Nemirovksy captures the rootless existence of emigres beautifully

Sandra Smith's translation is mellifluous and certain passages - the opening lines describing dusk in Kiev, for example - are breathtaking

Némirovsky excels at describing this dysfunctional household

Sandra Smith’s translation of the novel faithfully reflects Nemirovsky’s talents as an astute portraitist and storyteller

Nemirovsky evokes a time and a place when domestic upheaval could prove every bit as tragic and bloody as those played out on a wider stage