Told in his usual exquisite prose, the story centres on the strangely reticent character of Maud, who leaves the West Country after a tragedy and bravely attempts to single-handedly sail across the Atlantic. You know you’re going to like a character when, in the first few pages, she falls 20ft in a boatyard, then gets up and tries to walk. Infused with nautical detail and the cool brine of the sea, this is perfect summer reading

We readers have a most fabulous time . . . Maud, and questions about Maud, will linger in your mind long after you close this remarkable novel

Hypnotic . . . Andrew Miller has a poet’s ear but he can also write white-knuckle passages that will leave you winded by towering waves. Most surprising of all, you’ll find yourself rooting for Maud as she confronts the limits of her own detachment

Visceral and exquisitely written . . . few characters are so neutrally, impassively masterful. In her silence she is magnificent . . . Miller, wisely, hardly analyses Maud. But the portrayal of this practical, disconcerting figure is wildly emotional

Achieves a kind of hallucinatory strangeness, simultaneously intriguing and disturbing

Part relationship study, part sailing yarn, this odd yet enthralling book lingers long in the mind

A beautiful novel; moving, funny, mysterious and compelling. Maud is a stunning creation – a great modern heroine with a pure ancient heart

His structure – perfectly linear yet radically fragmented – tests the extremes to which one character’s trajectory can lead, and each half is strangely gripping in very different ways . . . deeply intriguing

Whether he sets a story in the 18th century or the present, and no matter his subject, [Miller’s] prose is highly distinctive in its detached precision. He writes like a scientist, utterly shorn of sentimentality, patient and clear-eyed