<b>Her writing has a timeless quality . . . [Groff] has a nose for moments of transcendent, almost holy natural beauty</b>

The Times

Another September title that we've been desperately waiting for— Lauren Groff, author of <i>Matrix </i>is back, with <b>an electrifying new novel</b> set in early colonial America; seventeenth century Jamestown, to be precise. A servant girl is working for her mistress who has a disabled daughter. She is devoted to the family but then abruptly leaves, heading into the wilderness, with just a few items and a spiritual spark inside of her. This is the start of the servant girl's journey — an utterly thrilling adventure in which she discovers the world around her and tries to find a different way to live in the face of colonialism. <b>Written in Goff's trademark visceral prose, this haunting book will stay with you long after you've finished it</b>. Fact

Glamour

Lauren Groff is one of the finest novelists of our age. Her writing is searingly beautiful - delicate and powerful at the same time. The voice of the unnamed girl is haunting and the descriptions of the wild lands are deliciously poetic. <b><i>The </i><i>Vaster Wilds</i> first grabs you tenderly and then refuses to let go. It's exquisite, heart-wrenching and utterly mesmerising</b>

- Andrea Wulf,

As always, Groff’s prose is finely worked, with a poet’s eye for imagery (a porcupine walks “his bristles through the undergrowth with the weary pomp of a crowned prince”) and <b>a visionary quality that recalls <i>Matrix</i></b>

Observer

<b>Groff writes in prose that sparkles</b> . . . this beautifully written, soulful book is partly a fable and partly a treatise on greed: an exhortation for mankind to be satisfied with his lot, something we would all do well to heed

Spectator

Of the many distinctions of this <b>rich and visionary novel</b>, perhaps the greatest is its prose. <i>The Vaster Wilds </i>presents us with a powerful alternative vision of the settlement of America: one not of a struggle between civilisation and savagery, in which European men felt “a need to set their boots upon everything they saw”, but of a resourceful young woman working with nature to establish a new life. Barack Obama picked two of Groff’s previous books — <i>Fates and Furies</i> in 2015 and <i>Matrix </i>in 2021 — as his novels of the year. It would be no surprise if <i>The Vaster Wilds</i> made it a third

Financial Times

<b>Groff’s prose is anointed with an agitated, near transcendent intensity</b>…In setting her alongside the likes of Hernan Diaz, and his Pulitzer Prize- winning<i> Trust</i> (2022), Groff’s books makes her one of an exciting new generation of American novelists who are using fiction to rewrite the founding myths of the so- called Land of Liberty

Sunday Telegraph