The Ladies of Grace Adieu - Tapa dura

'It's an astonishing achievement. I can't think of anything that is remotely like it.' Jonathan Palliser 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years. It's funny, moving, scary, otherworldly, practical and magical.' Neil Gaiman 'Clarke's tale of magicians and fairies is a prodigious achievement This is, in both the precise and the colloquial sense, a fabulous book a highly original and compelling work.' Sunday Times 'Brimming with cod-academic references and myths, pert drawing-room comedy and genuinely chilling fantasy, this will appeal to devotees of Sarah Waters as much as to Harry Potter fans.' Marie-Claire

Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk Faerie is never as far away as you think. Sometimes you find you have crossed an invisible line and must cope, as best you can, with petulant princesses, vengeful owls, ladies who pass their time embroidering terrible fates, or with endless paths in deep dark woods and houses that never appear the same way twice. The heroines and heroes bedevilled by such problems in these fairytales include a conceited Regency clergyman, an eighteenth-century Jewish doctor and Mary Queen of Scots, as well as two characters from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: Strange himself and the Raven King.