"Mr. Fermor's elegant rococo fantasy about a volcanic eruption on an imaginary Caribbean island is just close enough to reality to raise a genuine shiver–possibly even a genuine tear. In truth, it is a small timeless masterpiece." –Phoebe Lou Adams,
The Atlantic "The only work of fiction by Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor (the decorated war hero, admired travel writer and stylist) is doubly a period piece. Written and first published just over half a century ago, in 1953, its main action is set another half-century before that, in 1902. It is also, in its way, a masterpiece...There is more than a hint of mischief, and indeed humour, about Paddy's nostalgia for a lost world, and its ethereal afterglow that lives on in the violins of the title." –Roderick Beaton,
Times Literary Supplement "A sojourn in the Caribbean inspired a travel book and a novella, set in 1902 on an island in the Antilles, about love and intrigue in the over-blown and over-mannered society of the French aristocracy...
The Violins of Saint-Jacques is a masterpiece in the minor mode." –Brian Vintcent,
The Globe and Mail "[
The Violins of Saint-Jacques] brings alive the glamour and the passions of the planters in their heyday. This tale of a whole rich island being destroyed by a volcanic eruption in the middle of a splendid planters' ball is based on the true story of the annihilation in 1902." –Robin Hanbury-Tension,
The Telegraph
"The Violins of Saint Jacques, filled with lush imagery and elaborate historical reconstruction, deserves to be more widely known." –James Ferguson,
Caribbean Beat "A haunting threnody for a vanished world as the sole survivor remembers the glow and decadence of the Mardi Gras balls on the night when her Caribbean island was destroyed by a volcanic eruption." –
The Observer
