Press

Library Journal

In this intelligently drawn portrait of the complicated, volatile, and fiery man who was Mark Twain, Cullen (The Creation of Eve) explores the complex, tortured relationship between Twain and his secretary Isabel Lyon. Initially meeting over a game of cards years earlier, Lyon is eventually hired on as secretary to Twain’s wife but over time …

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Pubishers Weekly

The extraordinary relationship between the popular, complicated author Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, and his longtime secretary Isabel Lyon is wonderfully reimagined in this absorbing novel. Cullen (Mrs. Poe) depicts an immensely talented and virile, yet crude, hot-tempered, self-centered late-in-life Samuel, whose own children fear him and who remains tormented by his childhood with slave-owning …

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Anne Girard, author of Madame Picasso

Twain’s End is an exquisitely nuanced portrayal of the American icon and the woman who dared to love him. With superb attention to detail, and deep understanding and care for her protagonists, Lynn Cullen brings this deliciously complex story to life, delivering everything we expect in a modern masterpiece.

Nancy Bilyeau, author of The Chalice

Every room radiates with deliciously calibrated tension and hidden desires in Twain’s End. It is in its psychological truths that the novel succeeds most brilliantly, revealing the inevitable wounds in a relationship between a famous person and an ordinary one, and what happens when the balance of power changes. A riveting read.

New York Times bestseller M.J. Rose

We’re riveted as Twain comes alive — faults and all — but in the end we’re captured and captivated by him. ​Heartbreaking, passionate, profoundly interesting and readable. Cullen has once again jettisoned herself​ to another time and place and delivered historical fiction fans with an utterly fascinating read.

Stephanie Cowell, author of Claude and Camille

The utterly fascinating and heartbreaking story of the aging literary lion Mark Twain and his intelligent, beautiful, devoted secretary Isabel who loved and understood him… a rich novel which will sweep you into a remarkable world.