‘A sensitive, impeccably researched and deeply pleasurable debut novel ... As the best historical novels do, it absorbs the reader to such an extent that, even if they know the outline of the story, each page is a revelation.’
The Economist
‘I devoured this, and it made me happy and excited. It reminded me of Toibin's The Master: its representations of the psychology of the characters, their shifting ground, variegated moods, seemed to work in something like the same way, and with the same fineness. It's really beautifully tender, subtle, imaginative, saturated authentically (to my mind anyway) in another time and thought-world.’
Tessa Hadley, author of Late in the Day
‘O’Shaughnessy’s subtle, compelling, intensely feminine portrait explores the inner life of her sensitive heroine with the fine emotional intelligence that makes George Eliot’s own novels so remarkable.’
Clare Carlisle, TLS
‘Compelling … a tender and haunting study.’
Lucy Lethbridge, The Financial Times
‘Richly and sensitively described ... O’Shaughnessy does us the favour of reminding us what an underrated erotic writer Eliot is.’
The Sunday Telegraph
‘The novelist enters where biographers fear to tread … There is no doubt that O’Shaughnessy has saturated herself in the most important biographical and critical literature on Eliot.’
John Mullan, The Guardian
‘An accomplished tribute to one of our greatest authors.’
Simon Humphreys, The Mail on Sunday
‘A revealing debut novel … a fascinating read.’
Mariella Frostrup, BBC Radio 4 Open Book
‘This sensitive fictionalisation … is thoroughly absorbing.’
Daily Mail
‘The Eliot strand predominates as if Eliot herself was dictating like a whispering ghost.’
Mary Leland, Irish Examiner
‘O’Shaughnessy’s writing is full of delicious words … and brilliant descriptions. She is full of keen insights into Evans’s character … This is an astute, skilful book.’
Violet Hudson, Literary Review
‘In Love with George Eliot is a clever, unconventional approach to the great novelist's life; it is easy to imagine that Marian Evans herself would have approved of the playful thoughtfulness with which Kathy O’Shaughnessy brings the private person behind George Eliot’s public success alive.’
Dr Ruth Scurr, author of John Aubrey: My Own Life
‘Henry James was but one of many beguiled by Marian Evans (aka George Eliot) … In lucid, unshowy prose, O’Shaughnessy brings them all to life.’
Rose Shepherd, Saga
‘A layered, tender portrait.’
Dani Garavelli, The Herald
‘In Love with George Eliot is a feverishly intense and beautifully rendered first novel, especially in its detail and sensitivity, that brings to life the woman and the legend.’
Marie Matteson, Readings
‘Classy, beautifully written and richly imagined — a novel that opens a door onto the past.’
Nicci Gerrard, author of The Twilight Hour
‘In Love with George Eliot is a real pleasure to read, even if you haven’t read any of her novels.’
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
‘She gives a new life to these long dead, overdressed people, writing of them with an attentive and loving eye, forgiving them and understanding. Her take on the central mystery of Eliot’s later life – marriage to Johnny Cross, a family friend to both her and Lewes and 20 years her junior, and on Cross’ suicide attempt on their Italian honeymoon – is painfully believable.’
Helen Elliot, The Age
‘In this beautifully imagined novel, the rich intellectual world in which Marian lived is brought alive.’ FOUR STARS
Melinda Woledge, Good Reading
‘Crack this one open at the beach and get ready to become obsessed with the story of England’s greatest woman novelist.’
Rebecca Varcoe, Frankie Magazine
‘O’Shaughnessy crafts in her luminous debut an evocative portrait of English author George Eliot … passion and drama … Historical fiction fans won’t want to miss this.’
Publishers Weekly
‘O’Shaughnessy's leisurely, thoroughly researched and sympathetic debut novel imagines some key periods in the life of Marian Evans, better known as novelist George Eliot … [A] record of the complex and often fraught emotional life of a notable novelist.’
Margaret Quamme, Booklist
‘At the beginning of her career, the words of her fiction became a kind of smoke screen for Marian Evans, whose journey from anonymous obscurity to worldwide fame under her masculine pen name is delicately charted in Kathy O’Shaughnessy’s debut novel, In Love with George Eliot. Working back and forth between the present-day world of fractious Eliot scholars and the 19th-century world of their emotionally fragile subject, O’Shaughnessy concentrates on the private ambitions and uncertainties of her characters, drawing on Eliot’s letters for inspiration.’
New York Times ‘Best Books to Give This Year’
