Praise for
Becoming Belle
“O’Connor offers a stunning historical reimagining. Her eye for details, including Victorian dress, food, and technology, enhance her mastery of character and inner dialogue.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“O’Connor has the thrilling ability to step back nimbly and enter the deep dance of time—this is a hidden history laid luminously before us of an exultant Anglo-Irish woman navigating the dark shoals and the bright fields of a life.”
—Sebastian Barry, award-winning author of The Secret Scripture and Days Without End
“Becoming Belle is a glorious novel in which Belle Bilton and nineteenth century London are brought roaring to life with exquisite period detail. In her portrayal of Belle, Nuala O’Connor delivers a seductive study of a complex and fascinating woman who deserves the stage provided for her in this wonderful book.”
—Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author of A Memory of Violets
“O’Connor has a genius for finding the universal and unifying life essence of seemingly diverse women as they nurture their deepest sensibilities and draw upon their enduring strength.”
—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
PRAISE FOR
Miss Emily
“A superb novel, I was captivated from the first page. With gorgeous, compelling period detail and graceful prose, Nuala O’Connor reimagines a friendship between one of our greatest poets and her Irish maid. With uncanny insight into the expected portrayal of a servant-mistress relationship, and in keeping with the power and beauty of Dickinson’s poetry, O’Connor celebrates her women with great delicacy and exuberance.”
—Kathleen Grissom, bestselling author of The Kitchen House
“Lovely. . . . Miss Emily pulls us in from its first limpid lines and then detonates with an explosion of power—much like Emily Dickinson’s poems. The novel captivates with its high emotions and rich images. Hope, Ada comments, ‘may be small and bald at first, but then it gathers feathers to itself and flies on robust wings.’ So, too, does O’Connor’s quietly soaring novel.”
—Washington Post
“A beautifully imagined account of an unlikely bond.”
—People
“O’Connor is a gifted writer; not only does she bring a believable sense of poetry (clay is ‘deathly cool around my fingers’) and self-assurance to Emily, she is also capable of conveying complex feelings succinctly, a talent shared by her historical heroine.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A gorgeously rendered tale about a friendship between the real-life poet Emily Dickinson and the fictional Ada Concannon, this book is a celebration of relationships and art.”
—Globe and Mail (Toronto), Best Book of the Year