The Illumination

The Illumination has a fantastically original premise...the writing quality was excellent and I'm sure I'll remember scenes from this book for a long time to come. It is a wonderfully unique novel. Recommended

Farm Lane Books Blog

The Illumination is a quietly ambitious work ... Brockmeier clears a space for the exploration of beauties and pains that in a cruder novel might have been sentimental

Michael Sayeau, Times Literary Supplement

A novel of slight eccentricity and great tenderness

Kate Saunders, The Times

After a while the book itself seems to glow... Brockmeier, by the sheer grace of his writing, forces you to hold mortality and love in the forefront of your mind and just let them sink in

Guardian

An inspiring take on suffering and the often fleeting nature of connection

Publishers Weekly

Brockmeier is such a good stylist

Claire Allfree, Metro

Gentle notes instil a sense of humour and hope in a world that is full of darkness even when it is bathed in light

Nicola Meighan, The List

Gloriously inventive and original, euphorically daring in scope - reminds you that fiction can be energetic and boundary-breaking

Julie Myerson, New Statesman, Books of the Year

His vision is genuinely original...the brilliance of his premise rebounds throughout the novel, catching unexpected angles, radiating metaphor and meaning, and providing us with a new way of thinking about suffering - which must be one of the most important things any novelist can do

Edmund Gordon, Sunday Times

It is a delicate and intriguing look at something we ultimately all have in common

Bookgeeks.co.uk

Stunning... sublime... One of the most profound and profoundly moving books that it's been my privilege to read

Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

The most exciting and, in some ways, generous piece of fiction I've read in some time... I relish the way it dazzles and mystifies. I love its generosity of spirit, its whiff of frailty - the way the whole thing seems steeped in light

Julie Myerson, Observer

The novel follows a handwritten journal full of love notes from a husband to his wife as it passes through six pairs of hands. Each section is like a self-contained short story; exploring the meaning that each of the recipients takes from this testament of love

Alastair Mabbott, Herald

This is a radiant, bewitching, and profoundly inquisitive novel of sorrow, perseverance, and wonderment

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