Emma Watson

Joan Aiken’s invention seemed inexhaustible, her high spirits a blessing, her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure, and her books will continue to delight for many years to comePhilip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series

Aiken displays a lively turn of invention, not to mention assiduous research into her period . . . undoubtedly entertaining, a pretty, lively, amusing little pasticheJane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph

Her sense of time and place is impeccable. Others may try but nobody comes close to Aiken in writing Jane Austen sequelsPublishers Weekly

Aiken forces us to see what Austen made her own heroines see: themselves from another perspectiveLizzie Skurnick, New York Times Book Review