“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
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