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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘Quietly brilliant … among the best fiction of our time.’ Daily Telegraph
‘The finest novel Dunmore has written.’ Observer
‘Superb and poignant.’ Guardian

It is 1792 and Europe is seized by political turmoil and violence.

Lizzie Fawkes has grown up in Radical circles where each step of the French Revolution is followed with eager idealism. But she has recently married John Diner Tredevant, a property developer who is heavily invested in Bristol’s housing boom, and he has everything to lose from social upheaval and the prospect of war.

Diner believes that Lizzie’s independent, questioning spirit must be coerced and subdued. She belongs to him: law and custom confirm it, and she must live as he wants.

But as Diner’s passion for Lizzie darkens, she soon finds herself dangerously alone.
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Nominated for the 2018 Independent Booksellers Week Award
Longlisted for the 2018 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Publisher Review

"This is the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written ... From the start, Birdcage Walk has the command of a thriller ... The novel's cast is marvellous and vivid ... A novel that deserves to be cherished and to last." -- Kate Kellaway * Observer * "This powerful novel is a fine final flourish from a gifted writer ... The power Dunmore gives to lowly female lives is inescapably moving, their stories taking us on a remarkable journey into the visceral heart of the female experience in Georgian Britain ... [Dunmore is] one of the bravest and most versatile writers of her generation ... This fine, fiery novel will surely be remembered as one of her best." -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times * "Like many of Dunmore's novels, Birdcage Walk defies categorisation ... a blend of beauty and horror evoked with such breath-taking poetry that it haunts me still ... she has an extraordinary gift for taking the ordinary and familiar and rendering them new. When Tredevant's growing unpredictability once more tightens the narrative, forcing the story back into the ominous and unsettling territory where it first began, it is easy to see why [Dunmore] has earned a place among the finest writers of historical fiction working today." * Guardian * "Helen Dunmore's quietly brilliant historical novels are among the best fiction of our time." -- Jake Kerridge * Daily Telegraph * "A finely wrought psychological thriller ... But it's ultimately a novel about the ways in which we remember and, as such, a fitting contribution to Dunmore's extraordinary legacy." * Daily Mail * "Elegant prose and brilliantly researched historical detail ... a devastatingly good novel." * Sunday Express, S Magazine * "Part psychological thriller, part poetic exhumation of the past, it's a fiery, first-rate historical novel from an author who'll be much missed" * Mail on Sunday, Summer Reads * "Dunmore is skilled at claiming the huge canvasses of history and painting upon them exquisitely detailed human tragedies ... Every scene is saturated with vivid period detail but Dunmore's touch is feather-light." -- Francesca Segal * Financial Times * "Dunmore just writes so effortlessly. Birdcage Walk is a joy to read." * Stylist * "Marvellous ... Dunmore has the ability to evoke a sense of place and to write passages of thrilling and disturbing action ... Dunmore is a remarkable novelist who sets herself very different challenges in each new novel. She meets this one triumphantly. It will surely be a great and thoroughly deserved success." -- Allan Massie * Scotsman * "All Dunmore's novels grip the reader through her imaginative power ... compelling as ever." * Daily Express * "[An] engrossing read ... A thrilling novel of loyalty, betrayal and revolution, Dunmore once again fails to put a foot wrong." * Woman & Home *