Outstanding . . . The House of Doors again displays [Eng's] talent for atmospheric evocation of place and period . . . Beautifully detailed and encompassing the vagaries of Maugham's life, the contours of his creativity and the personal and political tensions covertly quivering through the sultry colony around him, The House of Doors is a finely accomplished piece of work Sunday Times
[Tan] can write with lyrical generosity and beautiful tact . . . lovely, drifting, dreamlike . . . Exquisite.