I am of one mind with Neil Gaiman on this book. The best English book to have been written in the last seventy years, definitely. 
 Mrs. Clarke has a way of enchanting the words so that anyone who reads it must love it! Well, perhaps not everyone will. After all, as many other people have pointed out, this isn't a book for the masses. This is a book for those kind of people who don't mind spending a week or perhaps ten, twelve days with the same story. 
 Those who do, however, will not be disappointed. It's like if Austen wrote fantasy. (If only she had, sigh). 
 I have read quite a lot of fantasy, but this book is by far the most original, yet. There are no dark lords or elves (even if there are fairies, their more human (of a sort) than eerie creatures). 
 And the prose! I have not read something like this written by a twenty-first century author! I wish more did! The words were chocolate melting in my mouth. I wish I had more every time I turned the page. 
 Now, a question to anyone who may be reading this, will there be a sequel?