‘There is no doubt Grenville is one of our greatest writers.’

‘[Grenville] is a gift of a writer.’

‘Nobody writes historical fiction like Kate Grenville. Again and again she has brought history—both the official records and the messy tensions in the margins—to life…Women like Dolly Maunder rarely make it into the history books. Here, she’s honoured by one of our best.’

‘Grenville uses exacting research to imagine her way into the life of another—this time a woman she once feared, and with whom she appeared to have come to some understanding.’

‘…the writing sparkles with Grenville’s gift for transcendently clear imagery…a work of history, biography, story and memoir, all fused into a novel that suggests the great potential of literary art as redeemer, healer and pathway to understanding.’

‘Grenville’s quiet and insightful prose makes this book a joy and an inspiration to read.’

‘Grenville’s achievement in this deeply moving book is that in resurrecting the woman behind her grim-faced grandmother, she’s given us insight into a generation too easily dismissed as archaic, narrow-minded, inflexible and slightly ridiculous. Yet again, she’s transformed faded history into something pulsing and alive.’

‘Family memoir and reimagined history dovetail beautifully in Restless Dolly Maunder.’

‘A powerful novel about a woman determined to rise above her station…It feels like a privilege to share in Grenville’s indomitable grandmother’s journey.‘

‘It is to the author’s credit that she offers us the ambivalence and complex textures of experience without losing the rhythm and pace of realist fiction. The landscapes, townscapes and domestic interiors are as vivid and memorable as we have come to expect from her writing, and the large cast is always kept in focus.’

‘Grenville, who has made a career from filling in the gaps in the lives of forgotten Australian women from history, tells Dolly’s story swiftly, cleanly and compassionately, all the while refusing to let this difficult, furious woman off the hook. Excellent.’

‘The masterful Grenville addresses the question of why this brilliant, frustrated woman struggled to express love to her children with clarity and compassion in a swift, thoroughly absorbing book.’

‘Grenville’s strength…is in the depth and nuance of her insight, revealing how the “different world” she inherited from her grandmother came with a darker legacy of intergenerational mistakes.’