"In this revealing new biography, Lyndsy Spence explores how Vivien Leigh's mental health troubles, and the awful ways in which they were treated in her era, defined a side of the star's life that didn't line up with the glitz and glamour of her public persona."

– Town & Country

"A fiery and powerful read. In a market crowded with full-length biographies of Vivien Leigh, Lyndsy Spence wisely refrains from adding another one. Instead she focuses on the years 1953–67, covering the period when Leigh was beginning to lose her grip on reality due to an escalation of bipolar illness."

– The Times Literary Supplement

"Biographer Spence delivers a moving account of British actor Vivien Leigh’s struggle with mental illness in the 14 years before her death. Spence has a novelist’s flair for pacing and detail. Spence succeeds in bringing Leigh to vivid life."

– Publishers Weekly

"A sensitively drawn portrait of a Hollywood icon whose on-screen persona belied the troubled woman who struggled with mental illness. Drawing from numerous letters and personal papers, Spence starts with the events of 1953 and weaves back and forth through the high and low points, juxtaposing Leigh’s on– and off–stage and screen lives."

– Booklist

“A sympathetic description of Leigh’s ‘perturbing nature’; an analysis of her numerous breakdowns, when she was in the grip of manic-depressive cycles –– the high spirits and crushing melancholia, when ‘everything inside her brain was white noise.’ Spence’s biography is powerful and illuminating. It also confirms my creeping suspicion that, at this distance, Leigh was a better, more intimate and instinctive performer than Olivier.”

– The Spectator (UK)