A sweeping tale of love, revenge and music from one of Britain's best-loved novelists.
'You don't see me as I really am. All the many nuances of Lika Blum. The light and the dark. You just see the light'
When Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, 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 19th century becomes the 20th.
Love is Blind is a tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; 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 20th century, Love is Blind is a heart-stopping new novel from one of Britain's greatest writers.
About the Author
William Boyd is the author of one work of non-fiction, three collections of short stories and thirteen novels, including the bestselling historical spy thriller Restless – winner of the Costa Novel of the Year – and Any Human Heart, in which the character of Ian Fleming features. Among his other awards are the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Jean Monnet. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2005, he was awarded the CBE.
Born in Ghana in 1952, William Boyd spent much of his early life in West Africa. He now divides his time between the south-west of France and Chelsea, where he lives a stone’s throw from James Bond’s London address.
Industry Reviews
Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent * Sunday Times *
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 * Observer *
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 *
Boyd's talents as a rollicking storytelling [are] full on display in this historical blockbuster * Metro *
A deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination * Guardian *
He has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries * Daily Telegraph *
Boyd is a brilliant novelist * Observer *
William Boyd is arguably one of Britain's finest living writers * Sunday Express *
