Gibbons's heroines are plucky, determined and quietly hedonistic. But she can do melancholy with the best of them, too, not to mention melodrama * Guardian *
What luxury to stumble upon this quirky book, and the fascinating modern woman who wrote it. It is a rare unadulterated pleasure and high time for its encore -- Sophie Dahl
Nightingale Wood is very impressive . . . Gibbons is superb on middle class life in the years immediately before the second world war, on the erosions of class division and ongoing snobbery . . . relying on icicle wit and sharp observation to lambast conventional morality. Gibbons also displays a tender side. There is real sadness in some of her characters, instead of deliberately heightened rural dolour - and it winds up as a love story that would please Jane Austen . . . I've loved every minute -- Sam Jordison * Guardian *
A sharp-edged romantic comedy, we have a chance to see what we've been missing * Daily Mail *
Gibbons's heroines are plucky, determined and quietly hedonistic. But she can do melancholy with the best of them, too, not to mention melodrama * Guardian *
What luxury to stumble upon this quirky book, and the fascinating modern woman who wrote it. It is a rare unadulterated pleasure and high time for its encore
Nightingale Wood is very impressive . . . Gibbons is superb on middle class life in the years immediately before the second world war, on the erosions of class division and ongoing snobbery . . . relying on icicle wit and sharp observation to lambast conventional morality. Gibbons also displays a tender side. There is real sadness in some of her characters, instead of deliberately heightened rural dolour - and it winds up as a love story that would please Jane Austen . . . I've loved every minute * Guardian *
NIGHTINGALE WOOD is in essence, a sprawling, delightful, eccentric fairy tale . . . There is romance galore, a transformative dress, and a ball, much dizzy kissing in hedgerows and beyond, spying, retribution and runaways, fights and a fire, poetry and heartbreak, a few weddings AND funerals, and a fairytale ending with a twist. What luxury to stumble upon this quirky book, and the fascinating modern woman who wrote it. It is a rare unadulterated pleasure and high time for its encore * Sophie Dahl *
