`A rich layering of history and fiction ... Erudite, elegant but easy-going ... One of the best novels of the year so far' The Times`Extraordinarily accomplished ... absolutely involving, thanks to beautiful description and a very fine understanding of human emotion ... Tolstoyan in its sly wit and descriptive brilliance ... Humane, thoughtful, compelling and packed with magic, this is a remarkable achievement' Guardian`So clever and beautifully written, it gripped me from start to end. I abandoned work and family to finish it' Roddy DoyleUnlike anything I've read. With its broad scope and its intimacy and exactness, it cuts through the apparatus of life to the vivid moment' Tessa Hadley`Hughes-Hallett's ambitious first novel dances between past and present, history and modernity ... magically and movingly evoked, and remains in the imagination long after the reader passes beyond its gates' New Statesman`Ambitious and accomplished ... a polyphonic narrative ... rich with detail ... leaves you hoping that this late conversion to fiction will prove only the beginning' Observer`A sensual meditation on the nature of paradise' Mail on Sunday`A teeming, heaving whirligig of a novel... Hughes-Hallett retains terrific control of her subject matter in a novel beautifully alert to the repeating patterns of personal and political history' Daily Mail`Happy, tragic, ever expanding and literally ground-breaking' Spectator`Characters to get involved with, stories to follow - perfect to get lost in' Woman & Home`That rare thing: a fresh classic. Ambitious, satisfying and mature, Peculiar Ground is spellbinding' Country Life`Richly imagined, impressively detailed ... admirably ambitious and well written ... original and intriguing' Sunday Times`Richly evocative' Tatler`Elegant, inventive, mystical' Daily Telegraph

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Political Book Awards Political Biography of the Year and the Costa Biography Award. Before that, she wrote Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions which was published in 1990 to wide acclaim, and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors and Supermen, published in 2004, which garnered similar praise. Cleopatra won the Fawcett Prize and the Emily Toth Award. Lucy lives in London.