The Mission House

'Carys Davies is a writer of immense talent.' * Colm Toibin * 'Carys Davies deserves every accolade she has received.' * Elizabeth Harrower * 'Davies' artistry is matched by her storytelling powers.' * Daily Mail * 'Carys Davies is a deft, audacious visionary.' * Tea Obreht * 'Carys Davies' enthralling fictions carry us across time and continents, and bring interior worlds to life.' * Claire Messud * 'At first glance a simply told tale, The Mission House has a twisted brilliance that is mesmerising.' * Saturday Paper * '[A] jewel of a novel...Fascinating.' * Guardian * 'This quiet novel, set in India at the turn of the century, explores weighty topics such as imperialism, religious intolerance and mental health but in a blessedly unassuming manner. Following middle-aged bachelor Hilary Byrd as he seeks refuge from his unfulfilled life in the UK, Davies gently excavates modern India's intersection with its history through Byrd's eyes. His relationships, including a fraught and unrequited love for his housekeeper, are deftly drawn and the characters deeply and warmly described.' * Gavin, Matilda Bookshop * 'No words are wasted, yet her conjuring of place and character are rich and vivid. Davies's tale feels timeless...a message of moral responsibility framed as quiet tragedy.' * The Times * 'Davies weaves her story with brevity and to devastating effect, drawing a portrait of an odd group of lonely people struggling to find a connection in a changing world' * Radio Times * 'This beautifully crafted story reveals the clash between old and new ways, imperial past and nationalistic present.' * Bookseller * 'Brilliantly crafted...Having subtly prepared the ground, Davies finally springs the jaws of her plot, revealing, heartbreakingly, to us, and the tragically blinkered Hilary, what kind of story this really is.' * Daily Mail * 'A delicately political tale that keeps the real drama largely below the surface, leaving the reader to gauge the extent of the protagonist's self-deluding solipsism.' * Metro * 'The Mission House puts [the genre of] Raj fiction to fresh purposes...the prevailing tone modulates between gentle humour and low key poignancy. The small, often dashed hopes of the under-privileged...are affectingly noted...Embroidered on a placard in the bungalow is the motto Lean Not on Thine Own Understanding . It's a message that pervades the book. Misunderstandings and misinterpretations fatefully mesh. Sudden shifts into another's mind tilt things into unsettling new perspectives...Subtle with nuance and alive with immediacy, again adroitly using small-scale effects to enlarge understanding and extend empathy, the resulting novel is a masterly achievement.' * The Times * 'A novel about the pitfalls of human connection in contemporary India...An interesting take on a familiar trope...The Mission House truthfully reveals that the new realities of India will increasingly have their revenge on these tired old romances.' * Guardian * 'Subtle with nuance and alive with immediacy, again adroitly using small-scale effects to enlarge understanding and extend empathy, the resulting novel is a masterly achievement.' * The Times * 'A delicately political tale that keeps the real drama largely below the surface.' * Metro * 'Brilliantly crafted...Having subtly prepared the ground, Davies finally springs the jaws of her plot, revealing, heartbreakingly, to us, and the tragically blinkered Hilary, what kind of story this really is.' * Daily Mail * 'Davies' lapidary prose is a marvel-she creates worlds in a few deft pen strokes.' * The Times * 'The Mission House is an absolute triumph. That rare type of book-resoundingly tender, and gently heart-wrenching. Carys Davies doesn't drop a sentence. I was deeply moved, and spellbound.' * Cynan Jones * 'I felt, reading this extraordinary novel, that the thorough oddity of its chief characters, their strange innocence, amounts to a revolt, on our behalf too, against the stupidity, cruelty, fanaticism and bigoted violence of the world in which they more or less successfully live their eccentric lives.' * David Constantine * 'An astonishingly assured and gripping piece of work and a worthy follow-up to West. Davies has a voice unlike any I've read: clean, otherworldly, eerily original, and capable of devastating effect.' * Julie Myerson * 'A wonderfully written tale of subtle repetitions from multiple points of view set in India - it has the simplicity of fairy tale, the heft of fable and contains all the human sadness and joy of misfits.' * Bernard MacLaverty * 'A compelling read. Carys Davies has an amazing gift for summoning up a place, a situation, the characters. Her skill is that of brevity, nailing a personality with a few lines of dialogue, saying most by saying least.' * Penelope Lively * 'A subtle, masterly treasure.' * Robbie Arnott * 'Tender, playful, piercing, light-footed-this is an irresistible novel.' * Michelle de Kretser *