Critical Praise

"Smith’s vivid exploration of the mind of author George Eliot, given name Marian Evans, and her late-in-life marriage to John Walter Cross raises the bar for historical fiction…. Eliot fans will certainly inhale every page, but any historical-fiction readers will thoroughly relish Smith’s tale of a remarkable woman and an unlikely Victorian love." 

—Booklist (starred review)

"Appealing.... An intelligent, delicate...portrait of genius."

—Kirkus Reviews

“If you never read George Eliot because you were slightly intimidated, THE HONEYMOON will reassure you. And if you’re already a fan of MIDDLEMARCH, ADAM BEDE, THE MILL ON THE FLOSS and DANIEL DERONDA, then this book will fill your imagination like a new friend you can’t believe you’ve lived so many years without. Smith’s George Eliot is brilliant and bold --- as you know she is --- but Smith is equally daring and no less incisive. She is as worthy a successor to so formidable a writer as is Colm Tóibín to Henry James.” 

—André Aciman, author of OUT OF EGYPT: A Memoir

“In this affecting novel, Dinitia Smith brings a biographer’s diligence and a novelist’s imagination to bear upon the life of George Eliot. Smith hews closely to the factual contours of Eliot’s last months --- in particular, her marriage to a man 20 years her junior --- while making provocative, speculative leaps into the mind and heart of the Victorian author. In so doing, Smith finds a way to consider some of the same questions that preoccupied Eliot in her own masterful fictions: What is the meaning and purpose of marriage? What are the challenges of imagining our way into the experience of those around us? And how might we --- even with the best intentions in the world --- fail in our comprehension of those closest to us?”

—Rebecca Mead, author of MY LIFE IN MIDDLEMARCH

“The brilliant George Eliot was one of the most fascinating women in history. Dinitia Smith sets the scene for her dramatic last act with depth and style.”

—Brooke Allen, critic and author

“THE HONEYMOON is one of those novels that seems to unfold without words, perfectly imagined, like a dream. It’s an eloquent story about George Eliot’s late marriage to a much younger man; but this only touches the surface. Dinitia Smith digs into the interior life of genius here --- exploring the greatest English novelist of the Victorian period. She brings that fine mind, and this astonishing age, to pulsing life. I love the pace of the narrative, the deep feeling that dwells here, deepening at every turn. This is wonderful fiction, taking us into the interior of human consciousness itself, into the heart of creation.” 

—Jay Parini, author of THE LAST STATION