‘This book is beautiful and very sad, at least for me. It is so well constructed: apart for Ann and Clara, all the members of David’s family give personal — first person — accounts of their experiences, which makes breathtaking reading. . .The heroine is so delicate, so fragile and yet so strong in her fragility. As she says in her letter to Ann, she went through a painful weighing of possible alternatives choosing to lie for the better; lie as a necessity for all, not just for her or for her daughter. There are moments of playfulness, like when Harry whistles a song of Vera Lynn. And moments of love in the abandoned houses of Lake Navaisha. For the rest… the tenor is dramatic: beauty and war and human pain. This book that has shaken me.’