Love is Blind

'Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent' Sunday Times'A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination' Guardian Book of the WeekThis is William Boyd's sweeping, heart-stopping new novel. Set at the end of the 19th century, it follows the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, about to embark on the story of his life. When Brodie is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum. Moving from Paris to St Petersburg to Edinburgh and back again, Brodie's love for Lika and its dangerous consequences pursue him around Europe and beyond, during an era of overwhelming change as the nineteenth century becomes the twentieth. Love is Blind is a tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge, of artistic endeavour and the illusions it creates, of all the possibilities that life can offer, and how cruelly they can be snatched away. At once an intimate portrait of one man's life and an expansive exploration of the beginning of the twentieth century, Love is Blind is a masterly new novel from one of Britain's best loved storytellers.'Boyd is back on a form few of his contemporaries can match. This fine, touching and clever book is the best thing he's written since [Any Human Heart] and deserves similar adulation' Obsever'Boyd's talents as a rollicking storytelling [are] full on display in this historical blockbuster' Metro 'The book begins and continues at a cracking pace - or perhaps a cinematic stride - with scenes, scenarios, set-pieces and minor characters aplenty, all of which and all of whom might easily detain another writer for an entire book . . . He makes it look easy: he's a pro' New Statesman

Autorentext

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. His first novel, A Good Man in Africa, won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize. His other novels include An Ice Cream War, Armadillo, Any Human Heart, Restless and Sweet Caress. His latest book is the short-story collection The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth. He is married and divides his time between London and south west France.

Klappentext

*William Boyd's new novel, The Romantic, is available to pre-order now*

'The ultimate in immersive fiction . . . magnificent' Sunday Times

'Highly readable, entirely engaging and frequently funny' Observer

'Perfectly pitched . . . A deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination' Guardian Book of the Week

Around the turn of the twentieth century young pianist Brodie Moncur quits Edinburgh's slate skies for the lights of Paris, his preacher father's words of denunciation ringing in his ears. There he joins forces with the fiery Irish virtuoso John Kilbarron and together the pair take Europe by storm.

But when he falls for Kilbarron's lover - the mesmerizing Russian soprano Lika Blum - Brodie quickly realizes that the tide has turned and he must flee across a continent, haunted by his love for Lika, and pursued by the vengeful wrath of his rival.

'A giddying read . . . his most immersive historical novel to date' Daily Telegraph

'Elegant and affecting. A racing fin-de-siècle romance' The Times

'Boyd's talents as a rollicking storytelling [are] full on display in this historical blockbuster' Metro