Press Reviews

• David Morrissey

  What an amazing novel.....an epic, fascinating and moving story. The sections set in Liverpool really spoke to me having grown up there, but I loved the London chapters. Vivid storytelling with complex and colourful characters. I thought it was spectacular.

• Philippa Perry

  Epic, magnificent, beautiful. A perfect work of art and craft and such a good story... I felt I was living it. I couldn't put it down.

• Nigella Lawson

  I'm not sure it could ever be possible to do justice to this magnificent novel in a few words: the flawless writing, wonderfully flawed characters, its epic sweep combined with a warm immediacy, indeed every page of it just bowled me over completely. I'm in awe, I'm charmed, and I want to press a copy on everyone I know.

• Joan Bakewell

  A major achievement... as fine as anything Linda Grant has written... maybe excelling them all

• Tessa Hadley

  Such an intelligent family saga, ambitious and moving and funny too... I loved it

• Catherine Taylor

  Financial Times

  Epic and marvellously entertaining... Grant is a brilliant chronicler of the British-Jewish diaspora, as well as being a close observer of cities... The Story of the Forest hums with the boisterousness of family and community life... There's a furious energy to the novel, which constantly moves forward even as it looks sorrowfully back

• Independent

  The tale is told with humour and sensitivity... Grant's own Eastern European roots in a culture with few written records and a strong tradition of storytelling informs the narrative

• Alex Clark

  Observer

  Like all good stories, it teems with false starts, mysterious clues and dead ends... Grant's particular gift is for the arresting scene that blends menace with comedy

• Reverend Richard Coles

  Jewel-like clarity... exceptional

• Good Housekeeping

  An epic story of a young woman coming of age in the early 20th century, set against the backdrop of the tumultuous events happening in Europe at the time. It's such a joy to be in the hands of an assured, vivid storyteller like Grant

• Tom Payne

  Mail on Sunday

  [A] smartly compressed dynastic novel... Grant's exquisite writing shows us the Latvian immigrants who adapted to Liverpool, then London, as well as offering grainy glimpses of those who stayed in Riga, reviewing the whole saga in a triumphant, elegant ending with never a word of schmaltz

• The Times

  [A] wise, sad and sometimes humorous family saga... Grant explores how families build their identity on stories and myths that mutate in the telling. It is fascinating to observe one family's changing domestic experiences and expectations in the 20th century, felt more keenly as their relatives back in the east experiences the horrors of war and dictatorship

• Clare Clark

  Guardian

  Tracing the arc of Mina's life over the full span of the 20th century, The Story of the Forest defies expectation. It is a sprawling family epic elegantly contained... a story of Jewish assimilation from the margins of Jewish history... sharp observation tempered with humour and tenderness... the characters themselves spring from these pages, vividly, unforgettably alive

• Stephen Bush

  Financial Times

  I devoured The Story of the Forest, an engrossing family saga that spans Latvia to Liverpool and the best part of a century... a truly terrific book - with a beautiful cover

• The Times

  Grant makes her characters talk from the heart, as does Anna Cordell's versatile and haunting narration - Audiobook of the Week