They Were Divided

Reviews / Votes

A Tolstoyan portrait of the end days of the Austro-Hungarian empire . . . compulsively readable. * Guardian * A masterpiece, in any language. * Daily Telegraph * Full of arresting descriptions, beautiful evocations of scenery and wise political and moral insights. * Spectator * So enjoyable, so irresistible, it is the author's keen political intelligence and refusal to indulge in self-deception which give it an unusual distinction. It's a novel that, read at the gallop for sheer enjoyment, is likely carry to along. But many will want to return to it for a second, slower reading, to savour its subleties and relish the author's intelligence. -- Allan Massie * Scotsman * Just about as good as any fiction I have ever read, like Anna Karenina and War and Peace rolled into one. Love, sex, town, country, money, power, beauty, and the pathos of a society which cannot prevent its own destruction - all are here -- Charles Moore * Daily Telegraph * Fascinating. He writes about his quirky border lairds and squires and the highgt misty forest ridges and valleys of Transylvania with something of the ache that Czeslaw Milosz bring to the contemplation of this lost Eden. -- W. L. Webb * Guardian *