PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Heldt’s translation beautifully conveys the prose narrator’s astringent tone as well as the emotional intensity of the dreamworld’s poetry ... Pavlova’s tightly constructed novel sheds light not only on Cecily’s double life, of which the heroine is unaware, but also on the double life of a society that conceals greed and ambition beneath a veneer of propriety ... The verse section of the final chapter shows the doubtful yet defiant prose narrator reflecting on her own ability to put her innermost thoughts into words that have \'crossed over to the outer world.\' Her ambivalent feelings about her poetic gift are explained in Heldt’s succinct and lucid introduction: Pavlova herself was repeatedly ridiculed as unwomanly for demonstrating her devotion to her art.
