Gill Mather's favorite historical fiction with mystery and authenticity

I love this famous book set in WW2 because it describes life in the 1940s so realistically.

It reminds me that today’s modern conveniences were not always available, and people had to make do with what they could get. I love it because it’s so clever, going into the nuts and bolts of Bletchley Park and the effort to break Germany’s Enigma machine to keep Britain’s merchant fleet safer.

Robert Harris’s writing style is superb, and I have read the book many times, always finding it difficult to stop reading. The book is character-led, which I particularly like. The people in it are so life-like and in keeping with the times. 

I love this book, which I have read several times, because it provides a lot of detail about Britain and America in the seventeenth century and the political troubles at the time.

Robert Harris’s writing style is brilliant as always, and as with all of his books, it was difficult to put down. The descriptions of the main character’s travels, especially in America, in an effort to hunt down his quarries are excellent. 

Incredibly, the author manages to create sympathy in the minds of readers for the regicides who are being hunted, even though they signed King Charles I's death warrant, and yet one also sympathises with the hunter.

I loved the book because it is so well-written and evocative of the period.

I have re-read it many times, and I loved the BBC TV adaptation, which I’ve also watched many times. I like the way in which the main characters come to life and are fleshed out. I also liked the fact that the characters develop as the story unfolds and become more sympathetic to the needs of others.

The details of the legal system of the era are excellent, and I loved the detailed courtroom scene. I admired the way in which the personalities of Jane Austen’s characters were maintained and not distorted. The plot is well thought out, and the book is very readable.

I love this book because it is well-written and utilises characters from some of Jane Austen’s novels without having a wildly improbable plot, as so many Austen variations do.

The characters are fleshed out and very realistic. It impressed me that the characters chose to perform a play by a playwright of the era whom I’d never heard of. The book is well-researched, and the language used by the characters and in the book’s narration is very authentic to the era, without trying to ape Jane Austen’s writing, which is impossible today, and when authors attempt it, it isn’t enjoyable.

I enjoyed the pace and style of the book and could imagine myself back in the Regency era, having to deal with Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the Reverend Collins.

I love this book, which I’ve just finished reading for the second time, going through the series once again.

On my first reading of this book, I realised that here was a brilliant writer whom I’d never come across before. The descriptions of London and elsewhere in the late 16th century are stunning. I never tire of this writer’s frequent and quite poetic use of simile to illustrate the appearance and qualities of objects, buildings, etc. in the book.

I enjoyed the "whodunnit" theme of the book as well as the many references to medicinal plants. The inclusion in the book of real 16th-century characters and the way they come over as real people is Impressive. There is a hint of a romance yet to come to fruition, which is very appealing.