Why Readers Love Sagas

'There's a desperate search for roots in an age where we're all over the place and have no sense of where you came from or how you feel about your place. You could be anywhere now... When you go to that author's next book, there's a real sense of family and familiarity.'

Luigi Bonomi, agent at Sheil Land

'A lot of women readers in particular have rotten circumstances - money is tight, they're struggling, perhaps they're single mothers, or dealing with elderly parents. To read about deprived circumstances in which the heroine very often starts out and somehow struggles through can only be a comfort. You can make sense of your life and feel something will come of it. If it isn't actually happening to you, at the very least you can read about it.'

Elizabeth Buchan, novelist and ex-chair of the Romantic Novelists' Association

(both quoted in an article in Publishing News about the enduring success of regional sagas)