Spectacularly accomplished and thrillingly suspenseful . . . it brims with rich, involving and affecting humanity * Sunday Times * An achingly romantic story of forbidden love . . . Mitchell's incredible prose is on stunning display . . . [ it] confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive -- Dave Eggers * New York Times Book Review * That rare thing - a novel which actually deserves the accolade "tour de force" -- Kamila Shamsie, Books of the Year * Daily Telegraph * Genres merge and interact like the shimmering colours of a kaleidoscope . . . one story contains multiplicities, woven together with golden thread . . . Dive in and lose yourself in a world of incredible scope, originality and imaginative brilliance -- Katy Guest * Independent on Sunday * Compared with almost everything being written now, it is vertiginously ambitious - and brilliant . . . He can write as thrillingly about large-scale events as he can about the tiny details of the private world . . . turned one way this novel is a thriller with a glittering seam of a love story running through it (or is it the other way round?); turned another, it is a sumptuous historical novel on the collision of cultures caught at a particular crossroads of history -- Neel Mukherjee * The Times * Stunning -- Books of the Year * Independent on Sunday * As compelling as it is strange, the novel is testament to the originality of Mitchell's vision and his great craftiness as a storyteller * Times Literary Supplement * A heady potion of betrayal, love, superstition, power politics and murder . . . And all this in the most extraordinary prose * Sunday Telegraph * However densely charted and richly sketched, this sumptuous imbroglio never drags . . . Mitchell flexes his prose virtuosity. More than before, those muscles do the heart's work * Independent * Moving, thoughtful and unexpectedly funny -- Books of the Year * Observer * Hugely enjoyable . . . It cracks along, holding us in suspense from the beginning * Literary Review * Masterpieces make their own rules, and this book is definitely one of them * Scotsman * David Mitchell is back with a bang . . . superb * Irish Independent * Ambitious and fascinating . . . Comparisons to Tolstoy are inevitable, and right on the money * Kirkus Reviews * A pitch-perfect masterclass in the art, and magic, of narrative -- Books of the Year * Independent * A marvel - entirely original among contemporary British novels, revealing its author as, surely, the most impressive fictional mind of his generation * Observer * A formidable marvel * New Yorker * Extraordinarily entertaining and well-realised -- A. S. Byatt * Observer * For a tour de force, it's surprisingly nimble, emotionally complex and simply unforgettable -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday * Almost every sentence shimmers with precise, opaque and brilliantly realised writing . . . An historical novel on a deliberately grand scale, it never loses its quiet intimacy * Irish Times * The details are fascinating and the prose beautiful . . . simply magnificent * Historical Novels Review * Sharp, hilarious, exhilarating stuff. Utterly enjoyable * Mslexia * An affecting conclusion underscores Mr Mitchell's mastery here not only of virtuosic literary fireworks, but also of the quieter arts of empathy and traditional storytelling -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times * Dazzles with its density and intensity, its ambition and grandeur * Courier Mail * Mitchell's masterpiece; and also, I am convinced, a masterpiece of our time * Boston Globe * The novelist who's shown us fiction's future has written a classic tale . . . an epic of sacrificial love, clashing civilizations and enemies who won't rest until whole family lines have been snuffed out * Washington Post * A vastly entertaining historical novel, giving the reader a glimpse into a world we know so little of and charting a fascinating period of history * Sydney Morning Herald * A marvellously wrought novel, full of fully formed characters and the kind of detail that allows you to sink deep into its imaginary world. I was sorry when I finished * Herald Sun *