Humor, compassion, honesty, and genuine affection.

– Atlanta Constitution

A first-rate writer, her prose rich with memorable descriptions that bring her landscapes, particularly the Southern ones, into sharp focus.

– New York Times Book Review

Sayers treats even her most peripheral characters with as much care and attention to detail as her featured players. It is one of the elements that lends her work such vitality and, by extension, humor.

– Charleston Post and Courier

To say that Valerie Sayers is a natural-born writer wildly underestimates the facts….She has carved out for herself a corner of the South as clearly delineated as Faulkner’s famous Yoknapatawpha County, a sense of the importance and holiness of place that calls to mind Eudora Welty’s writing on the subject.

– Chicago Tribune

In her celebration of unlovely, unexamined lives, Sayers draws forth a good deal of sympathy for a “trio of middle-aged failures running to fat and disappointment” whose race to nowhere is full of memorable voices, color, and the tang of living.

– Kirkus

Displaced Southerners, baby boomers coming of age, and New York artists living through the political and social climate of the past 30 years would seem to conjure up several stories we have heard all too often. However, Sayers gracefully interweaves all these elements into a cohesive and compelling tale.

– South Bend Tribune

Her fans have the pleasure not only of reading another intriguing, well-written book, but also of watching the growth of a writer whose range of talents we’re only beginning to see.

– Winston-Salem Journal

Sayers is writing with new assurance, and her gritty candor and unflinching gaze at her characters’ foibles make the narrative ring with authenticity. ..a riveting immediacy… raw sensory power.

– Publishers Weekly

Valerie Sayers’ seductive humor and compassionate understanding of human foibles have earned her comparisons to Flannery O’Connor, Reynolds Price, and Mary Gordon. With each successive novel, Sayers’ spirited prose has flourished, creating rich and wholly believable residents of Due East.

– Brooklyn Woman

A generous portrayal of the solaces and failures of family bonds and a welcome addition to the richly evocative world Sayers has created in Due East…. Full of grace, irony, and humor

– Greensboro News & Record