I Couldn’t Love You More

Freud’s book unpicks the promise of liberation – who enjoys it, who pays the price …The sharp intimacy of the writing is … full of compassion and a profound decency
SUNDAY TIMES

I devoured it in two sittings, hungrily and impatient for more … A loving tale of motherhood through the ages while taking in how badly women have been treated simply for being women. You will weep with happiness and sadness
EMMA BARNETT

Hits that tricky sweet spot between commercial and literary fiction … Freud’s darting, impressionistic prose is full of riches

THE TIMES

Heart-breaking … Shrewd yet tender, stirring as well as harrowing, it’s a tragic saga that nonetheless keeps the door ajar for redemption
DAILY MAIL

A tender portrait of three women carrying trauma, pain and the emotional weight of their respective relationships … Freud’s prose is bridled and poignant … Devastating
IRISH EXAMINER

I Couldn't Love You More is completely, inspiringly wonderful. I read it non-stop through the night, finding myself simultaneously uplifted and wrung out by the emotional power of the story and by its ambitious social and historical range. It couldn't be better
BARBARA TRAPIDO

This is such a powerful book – it unravels a deep tragedy in three miraculously entwined stories, in three different times, mothers and daughters linked by sorrow and love. It’s a gently told story of harsh, harsh events – a mystery story of separation and sorrow that is finally resolved with truth and warmth, but with no punches pulled. It’s a book about shame and the evil men do, but also about strength and the possibility of salvation in the face of one of the great scandals of the last century
RICHARD CURTIS

This exquisite family saga reads as a love letter between four generations of women. Everything is here; family ghosts, the bond between mothers and daughters, cruelty, endurance, the difficulty of love, and a faith in the possibility of healing – even after years of separation. This tender, elegant book delivers an emotional punch that left me in tears
RACHEL JOYCE

A new Esther Freud novel is always such a treat and I couldn’t love this one more
POLLY SAMSON

Beautiful, moving, wonderful … Let me be the first (but not the last) to say I couldn’t love it more
SAM BAKER

A memorable read with some lessons to be learned
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

A beautiful and quietly powerful novel of cruelty, humanity and love
BUSINESS POST

In this fascinating novel, Freud interweaves the stories of a daughter, mother and grandmother to show how past hurts and dreams drip down through generations. The women's characters and circumstances are beautifully evoked as are their struggles not to be defined by men or convention. Freud knits their plights together to create an utterly readable and compelling narrative
HANNAH ROTHSCHILD

Freud is a consummate novelist. Her research is always thorough (in this one intensely imagined and vividly observed), her characters alive … her story page-turning, complex and emotionally satisfying
SPECTATOR

I love this book. It feels like the novel Esther Freud has been waiting to write her whole life. The tenderness of the mother-daughter bond, the cruelties and prejudice of old Ireland, the vitality of 1960s London all beautifully realised
AMANDA CRAIG

I hugely enjoyed it. She is such a compelling writer, so good at evoking atmosphere
LYNN BARBER

A breathtakingly beautiful book, a story of absolutely vivid originality but also one that addresses those fundamental complexities that ripple through human life, transcendent of time and of place and repeated through generations at whatever age
JULIET NICOLSON

I loved it. I loved its ambition and the dexterity with which it was done, it’s poignancy and truth. I hope it does brilliantly
ELIZABETH BUCHAN

Freud is a modern literary rarity: a born storyteller, poetic but never overwrought; thoughtful but never showy
THE TIMES

As close to a perfect novel as anything I've read in a long time
ANN PATCHETT