“Audacious and very impressive. It is the struggle for self-knowledge and moral awareness that makes this a remarkable book.”
Alan Massie, The Scotsman
“Marilyn Bowering has written a whale of a yarn! She takes history, adventure, mystery and romance and fuses all of the elements into a fascinating whole.”
Chattanooga Times
“A many layered and carefully choreographed novel about the sea coast that moves magically between two generations.”
Linda Spalding, Quill & Quire
“A strangely beautiful, haunting first novel. Bowering has created a magnificent character, at once mythical and human.”
Publishers Weekly
“I found myself rereading sentences, passages, whole pages, slowly consuming the words and the gorgeous details, a bolt of cloth, a whiff of opium smoke, a bit of polished bone. Delicious.”
Renee Hulan, Malahat Review
“A vivid, absorbing, perceptive, sensitive, and spare. To All Appearances a Lady is a marvellous debut; to all appearances a paragon of dazzling imagination.”
Tom Adair, Scotland on Sunday
“Bowering synthesizes time past, time present and time-in-coincidence to create a boundless time and a boundless work of art.”
Doug Beardsley, Times Colonist
“Bowering’s novel is a powerful one, with a wealth of colour and a fine sense of drama. It is positively Conradian, not only in its nautical lore but also in its epic sweep.”
Books in Canada.