Rose Tremain's novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award (The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music & Silence) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Sacred Country) and the South Bank Sky Arts Award (The Gustav Sonata). Her most recent novel is Islands of Mercy. Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007 and a Dame in 2020. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes. www.rosetremain.co.uk
No writer can inhabit the skin of a historical period and bring it so pulsatingly alive as Rose Tremain. No one can break your heart quite like this. In this compassionate, generous, soaringly beautiful book, Tremain is at the top of her game. Read and be transported -- Neel Mukherjee It's more than gratifying to open [Tremain's] new novel, Lily, and immediately see that she is still writing at full throttle... This is the literary equivalent of all your favourite Christmas telly programmes rolled into one... Lily's story is a winter's tale: a cosy pageturner that will whisk you away from the 21st century while engaging and sharpening your mind. -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times * Lily, in addition to its pellucid prose, is shamelessly gripping -- Jake Kerridge * Daily Telegraph * Another memorable and engrossing read from Tremain, which brings Victorian London, and especially courageous Lily, to life on the page -- Joanne Finney * Good Housekeeping * Lily is an ingenious blend of historical novel, moral fable and fairy story. Tremain, a pre-eminent historical novelist, vividly evokes the disparate social worlds of Victorian London... Lily is a tale not just of revenge but of redemption, which carries an intense emotional charge. Tremain again displays her supreme ability to create characters who are at once totally true to the period and instantly identifiable to the modern reader * Financial Times *