Fitzgerald's biographer, Hermione Lee, noted that the novel masquerades as a light, comical love story set in Edwardian times, while also raising - but deliberately not answering - questions about the nature of belief, relativity and truth. Lee held the book to be the most feminist of all of Fitzgerald's novels (though noting that the author did not use that categorisation), dealing as it does with themes of women's struggles, the abuses against them, and their need for solidarity.