Press

What the critics say

There's a great deal of skill at work in the telling of this tale – the tender yet unsentimental characterisation, the light touch with which Endicott handles the drama and humiliation of, variously, first love, sibling rebellion and Aurora's marriage of convenience to a much older theatre producer. But this is also a book that moves the reader who gives themselves over to it; you laugh, feel intense embarrassment, say 'Oh no!' aloud to the pages. In other words, here art goes hand in hand with artifice, just as those captivating Avery women would have it.
- Guardian

The Little Shadows is a novel about art and women, and personal fulfilment and the thrill of performing... She has written an entertaining, moving and original work.
- The National Post

The Little Shadows has Endicott's wry sensibility, her pithy lyricism and her skill at pulling the rug out from under the reader's feet. Like the previous novel, this one also concerns itself with big ideas: the point of art, sisterly and familial love and, as the war's shadow extends and darkens, the meaning of life itself.
- The Globe and Mail

I couldn't fault the characterisation ... The wedding of the characters to the era makes this book fascinating enough to make me want to go through Marina Endicott's back catalogue. I hope the Endicott home has a broad mantelpiece - if she carries on like this, the awards will keep coming.
- The Bookbag

A vivid coming of age tale about the beautiful Avery sisters, thrust on the vaudeville stage after their father's death. Set in early 20th-century Canada, it catapults the reader into the beating heart of the travelling theatrical world - the smell of the greasepaint, heat of the spotlights, and high-wire adrenaline are near-tangible. Thrilling and moving this is a glittering jewel of a novel.
- Easy Living

The three Avery sisters ('The Belle Auroras,' as they become known on the stage) begin with little in their favour besides youth and hope but each one slowly and steadily evolves into a unique and accomplished artist while navigating her way to adulthood among a cast of extraordinary charmers, charlatans, eccentrics and impresarios ... Marina Endicott's novel delves into the world of Vaudeville theatre, in all its eccentricity.
- Stylist Magazine

The sisters Endicott creates are believable and beautiful, starting out with little but their raw talent and good-natured hope. The novel's charting of their progression through the world of enticing and seductive Vaudeville is wholly captivating, and so heart-warming it might make you want to take to the boards yourself. This is a novel full of glamour, charm and sultry show business, a must-read for anybody with a penchant for the bright lights and the smell of grease paint.
- welovethisbook.com

The Little Shadows is my book of the year. Think of your favourite stories about sisters - the gravity, levity and subtlety with which the lives of siblings are woven together; Endicott puts her own spin on that.
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Marina Endicott’s latest novel conjures up an air of nostalgic entertainment.
- Star magazine