“Fiction and history merge seamlessly in this dazzling novel.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Being related to Virginia Woolf can’t have been easy. In this delightful novel, [Priya] Parmar re-imagines the brilliant, fragile writer and her turn-of-the-century bohemian friends, the famous Bloomsbury set, through the eyes of her painter sister Vanessa. . . . You’ll be spellbound.”—People

“Rarely do you encounter a woman who commands as much admiration as does the painter Vanessa Bell in Priya Parmar’s multilayered, subtly shaded novel. . . . Parmar’s fabricated journal is an uncanny success. Its entries, plausible and graceful, are imbued with the same voice that can be found in letters by or about Vanessa. . . . Parmar gives truth and definition to the character of a woman whose nature was as elusive as her influence was profound. She has caught the phantom.”—The New York Times Book Review

 

“Parmar inhabits the gilded ‘bohemian hinterland’ of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa, creating a vibrant fictional homage.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

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“In her gossipy, entertaining historical novel about the British bohemians, Priya Parmar conjures a devastating fictional portrait of one of those triangles – the great writer Virginia Woolf (A Room of One's Own, To the Lighthouse); her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell; and Vanessa's husband, art critic Clive Bell...Parmar's perceptive and well-informed fill-in-the-blanks approach — and her elegant, accessible style — makes for some tasty, frothy Bloomsbury pie, indeed.” 
—USA Today
 
“Vanessa and Her Sister illuminates Virginia Woolf’s backstory from a striking perspective…Parmar has captured a thrilling, terrifying feeling of infinite possibility, reimagining an intimate time when these future icons are still “living on the borrowed fuel of potential and so far have not left deep footprints,” as the 26-year-old Vanessa muses early in the novel.” 
— ELLE
 
“Captivating from beginning to end.”
— Vogue
 
“graceful, captivating” 
— Newsday
 
“a vibrant fictional homage.”
— O: The Oprah Magazine
 
“Somewhere between Downton Abbey and Keeping Up With the Kardashians, this provides enough scandal and family drama to keep the pages turning”
— Harper's Bazaar

 

"You'll get lost in the worlds of Vanessa Bell and her sister, Virginia Woolf, as they struggle to make it as a painter and an author, respectively, in prewar London—but more so than art, this is a story of sisterhood."
— Glamour Magazine
 
“Inventive, meticulously researched … the author’s greatest triumph is giving voice to the steady, loyal, motherly Vanessa, who lived nobly in her sister’s shadow, only to experience heartbreaking betrayal.”
— Good Housekeeping
 
“This novel about sisters of Bloomsbury is a twofer: Read it for the story; literary history is a bonus.”
— AARP Bulletin
 
“TMZ would have loved the Bloomsbury Group… an elegant, entertaining novel that brings new life to the Bloomsbury Group’s intrigues.” 
—Dallas Morning News
 
“If you’re at all interested in Virginia Woolf, or just a fan of a good piece of historical fiction, in the vein of The Paris Wife, this book’s the one for you.”
— Bustle.com
 
“The plot — as pretzeled as Bloomsbury’s round-robin of love affairs—unfolds at the steady pace of time, in crisp period prose, and rarely feels inevitable.”
— Vulture.com
 
“Parmar does a stellar job conveying Virginia’s complicated, almost incestuous feelings for Vanessa…The author also deftly brings to life the various artists and writers who formed the nascent Bloomsbury group…Parmar’s narrative is riveting and successfully takes on the task of turning larger-than-life figures into real people…[she] weaves their stories together so effortlessly that nothing seems out of place.'
— Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
 
“A devoted, emotionally intense portrait of the Bloomsbury group … Parmar enters it with passion and precision.”
— Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

“The book's strength lies in the well-written relationship between Vanessa and Virginia, sure to appeal to fans of Michael Cunningham's The Hours.”
— Library Journal

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“Captivating . . . a subtle exploration of the sisters’ complicated emotional life . . . Through letters and Vanessa’s journal entries, [Parmar] captures the excitement of social experimentation.”—BBC

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“You don't need a deep knowledge of the Bloomsbury group to appreciate this novel but, if you're a hardcore Bloomsbury addict (like me), it's one of the essential reads of the year … It's biography as fiction, imagined with almost supernatural brilliance. Bliss” 
— The Times (UK)
 
"In this impressive novel, everyone is afraid of Virginia Woolf… Vanessa and Her Sister is a remarkable achievement, all the more so for being only Parmar’s second novel. She has had the blessing of Vanessa Bell’s granddaughter and daughter-in-law, and her research has clearly been meticulous. But it’s the central portrait of Vanessa’s emotional life and her journey to a more disillusioned, if pragmatic, self-knowledge, that makes this novel, with its familiar setting, so fresh and compelling."
— The Guardian (UK)

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“Immerse yourself in this joyously imagined novel … Superbly controlled and structured, the novel contains a central irony: 'Vanessa' writes like an angel. Bravo” –  Daily Mail
“Her imagined “diaries” of Vanessa Bell, from 1905 to 1911, are a triumph from first to last. She gets the authorial voice spot-on and skewers Virginia Woolf, Vanessa's sister, in all her ridiculous hauteur” 
— Mail on Sunday (UK)
 
“I romped through this novel and longed for more … Edwardian London, from Fortnum's Dundee cake to the first post-impressionist exhibition, comes to life. Roll on a sequel” 
— The Economist's Intelligent Life
 
“Compellingly involving, it captures with a light touch the hothouse emotionalism of Bloomsbury's tangled relationships … Overwhelmingly, however, this is pitch perfect: sensitively handled, unsensational and persuasive” 
— Country Life (UK)

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“Priya Parmar is on a high-wire act all her own in this radiantly original novel about the Bloomsbury Set. Irrepressible, with charm and brio to spare, Vanessa and Her Sister boldly invites us to that moment in history when famous minds sparked and collided. Prepare to be dazzled.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

 

“Vanessa and Her Sister is an account of my grandmother’s early life, told with faith, elegance, and an almost uncanny insight into the subject. But this is also an absorbing work of fiction—and Priya Parmar has made Vanessa’s story her own.”—Virginia Nicholson, Vanessa Bell’s granddaughter and author of Among the Bohemians​​