Praise from other writers

"Miss Garnet is a respectable, middle-aged English woman who is overwhelmed by her first visit to Venice. We think, well yes, we know this plot, but the book turns out to be subtle, unexpected and haunting in a way we certainly never guessed"
Penelope Fitzgerald

"Miss Garnet's Angel is the sort of novel I really enjoy. It is decorous, very kind, very funny; and I knew as I read it that I would want to read it again - probably quite soon. The best of tests. Barbara Pym fans please note!"
John Bayley

"Miss Garnet's Angel is a subtle and surprising story. We expect Venice to beguile: what is less expected is to find a modern novel dealing with angels in the same matter-of-fact way as the painters of the early Renaissance. Art, in fact, is one of the themes that weave through the story, linking the apocryphal story of Tobias and his encounter with the Archangel Raphael with the greatest emotional crisis in the life of the cool, retiring, and passionate Miss Garnet" 
Philip Pullman                                    

"Every lover of Venice knows the ravishing Guardis of Tobias and the Angel in the church of Angelo Raffaele; but nobody has ever responded to them like Salley Vickers. This deeply moving, thought provoking, fascinating novel, set in the Venice of today, is not a retelling of the old story... but the resonances are unmistakable, and the passages in which we are transported back to the days of Tobit, his son Tobias and the Angel that gave the church its name are brilliantly and beautifully controlled. It is a triumph"
John Julius Norwich

"Venice is a perfect location for one whose passion needs prodding back into life and Vickers evokes the city beautifully, layer by layer, its unexpected gifts surprising us as they gradually ensnare ..."
Meera Syal

UK reviews | US reviews | Books of the Year 2000