[The Rising Tide] is an extremely interesting and absorbing novel…. It is as much a story of a place and a period as of people; the place is Garonlea, an Irish estate, the period 1900 to the first years after the war, the people are the family of French-McGrath. Despite its setting and period, the war and the Irish Troubles are not important to the story, which concerns itself entirely with personality and environment….

It is difficult to give an accurate idea of this book without falling into phrases about Periods of Transition and the Spirit of the Times, which would be unfair, because the book is too human for that, some of its scenes too indelible. It is written with considerable beauty and sensitivity. If it has a flaw it is that feminine one of over-sensitivity, a too-great absorption in flower forms, a too-frequent use of the word...