The White Rock

Reviews

Full of wisdom about the blink-and-you'll-miss-it nature of our lives 'Profoundly intelligent and humane. Deserves to feature on many a prize shortlist' 'Thoughtful, beautifully written, honest. A sensual book. I URGE YOU TO READ IT' One of the most intensely readable novels I've encountered this year Precise and perceptive ... Deeply satisfying ... We may struggle to find hope, Hope tells us, but it is there in the landscape, in faith and memory and ritual, in the ancient unchanging silences that persist' Anna Hope is such a generous and sensitive writer, and The White Rock is full of extraordinary voices and ideas. Absolutely a story for our times, and a fiercely important one, too The White Rock is a sublime, poetic, and visionary work of art An eco-novel you actually want to read ... She's an assured author with a knack for an arresting image ... It leaves you with a gentle sense that things keep going Mysterious and beautiful. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas, but it's very much itself: so bold and wild, but controlled and fierce. It's stunning writing and it has left me with hope, that we can tell stories like these even as the carbon builds, and that imagination and ideas remain powerful and valid Brilliant. A stunning book of extraordinary, audacious scale Poetic, philosophical and wildly captivating... Anna Hope captures the human condition and feeds it treats while you watch it shimmer. Her characters dance, crawl and blast off the page, like mystical beings who are at the same time solidly human. I swam in this book and didn't want to come up for air I loved it. I became invested in each of the different eras and was struck by the sense of unknowable forces outliving us all. It is full of wisdom, intricate and emotional, and it will linger in my head for a long time I loved the sparseness, the moments of poetry, the quiet brutality. The voice throughout is fierce and graceful and utterly compelling; each central character is rich and beautifully pinpointed. It is her strongest work yet Lyrical and timely Its narrative sweep is capacious ... It has ambition to match, musing on freedom and reciprocity, on the redemptive power of storytelling and the sustaining force of ritual ... Demonstrating impressive stylistic verve Mesmerising ... Imaginative ... Among its many impressive elements is Hope's handling of the past ... Her greatest talent is in getting under the skin of her characters ... There is a subtle plangency in this powerful portrait of human folly and ferocity Deeply moving ... I, for one, hope we hear plenty more from her Perfectly crafted, evocative prose which effortlessly transported me through two hundred and fifty years of history Expand reviews