“Dazzlingly detailed and illuminating … beautifully observed” – Country Life

“Absorbing … a treat for Hardy fans and unhappy wives” – The Times

“Excels in searching out unseen corners and establishes the ties between life and literature that Hardy denied” – New Statesman

“Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy created some of literature’s most enduring female characters, but it is the real women who shaped the life of the tortured genius that this book vividly reanimates” – Independent

“A fuller picture than the standard ‘cradle to grave’ biographies” – Literary Review

“wonderful … David Niven’s classic movie memoir The Moon’s a Balloon meets Game of Thrones … a whirl of banquets, massive jewels, backstabbing, sex and death … a delicious free-flowing human adventure … eye-poppingly fun and thought-provoking” (The Times)

“A compelling read … Byrne writes authoritatively about Hollywood’s illusions and obscene, glittering excess” (Daily Mail)

‘A zingy fast-moving novel – very readable, elegantly written and crafted’ – The Times

‘This energetic debut has genuine suspense’ – Daily Mail

‘A very clever and disturbing look at the pitfalls of social media’ – Booklover’s Boudoir

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‘superb … compelling’ – Evening Standard

‘The most insightful analysis of the making of the Austen legacy’ – Jane Smiley, New York Times

‘I relished every page … Byrne’s knowledge of everything Austen wrote has an enviable thoroughness and perception which is rare among Austen scholars and which illuminates the whole of her text. I am tempted to say this is the best book on Jane Austen I have ever read’ – The Spectator

‘definitive and pioneering’ – Times Literary Supplement

‘A fascinating analysis that marries meticulous historical research with critical imagination and flair’ – The Historical Journal

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‘A story of glamour, romance and tragedy’ – The Times

‘A brilliant and sympathetic biography … sentence by sentence, the book is a joy’ – The Guardian

‘An exciting, heartbreakingly tense love story’ – Kirkus Review

‘An engrossing read’ – New York Post

‘written with panache … as engaging as its subject’ – Sunday Express

‘A fun-loving American charms the English aristocracy with her wit and sangfroid, overcoming prejudice to win the heart of London’s most eligible bachelor …  Paula Byrne … recaptures her brief but fascinating story’ – Vogue

‘Byrne conjures such an a vivid portrait of her enchanting heroine that one almost feels deprived never having met her’ – Daily Mail Book of the Week

‘An excellent biography … supported by impressive research’ – Financial Times

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‘A touching account … artfully constructed’ – Sunday Times

‘The theatrical zest of the narrative, which is a tie-in with a movie of the same name, holds it all together’ – The Times

‘Byrne brings to this brief history an eye for telling details of daily life, slaveholders’ unthinkable cruelty, and the fervent work of a few good men and women who changed their world’ – Kirkus Review

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‘Brilliantly illuminating … riveting’ – The Guardian

‘Vividly persuasive’ – New York Times Editor’s Choice

‘Magnificent … explodes the old view of her subject … Her method is kaleidoscopic, full of surprises, offering a fascinating social and cultural history of the time served up in a series of learned yet wholly accessible essays, the formidable scholarship subsumed, never paraded’ – Times Literary Supplement

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‘An utterly captivating and generous book with all the intensity of a diary and the scholarly soundness of a fine biography … You’ll be hard-pressed to set it down’ – Chicago Tribune

‘turbo-driven narrative power … vibrant, absorbing, stranger than fiction’ – Sunday Times

‘a marvelous book, warm, witty and enormously readable’ – Daily Telegraph

‘Altogether excellent and wickedly entertaining’ – Washington Post

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‘Enthralling and perceptive … A fine biographer has conjured up a dazzling personality and brought her, laughing, back to life … superbly researched and narrated’ – Sunday Times

‘a masterly portrait of a remarkable woman’ – Sunday Telegraph

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‘Inspired … With excellent commentary from beginning to end, this useful book is cheaper than therapy … A wonderful volume for every home’ – Daily Mail

‘packages up some of the most beautiful and beloved of poems (from Horace to Clive James, by way of Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson and WB Yeats) as a literary mindfulness cure … Read a poem a day and it could save your sanity as much as any fancy new theory … Above all, the poems remind us what it is to be human in any age, and that we are not alone’  – Sunday Times