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Where My Heart Used to Beat

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks, an English doctor who has seen the best and the worst the twentieth century had to offer, is forced to confront the events that made up his life.

His host, and antagonist, is Alexander Pereira, a man whose time is running out, but who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does.

The search for sanity takes us through the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that seems to hold out hope, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally – unforgettably – back into the trenches of the Western Front.

The recurring themes of Sebastian Faulks’s fiction are brought together with a new stylistic brilliance as the novel casts a long, baleful light over the century we have left behind but may never fully understand. Daring, ambitious and in the end profoundly moving, this is Faulks’s most remarkable book yet.

©2015 Sebastian Faulks (P)2015 Penguin Audio Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction War & Military War Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Military

Critic reviews

A masterpiece…a terrific novel, humming with ideas, knowing asides, shafts of sunlight, shouts of laughter and moments of almost unbearable tragedy (Toby Clements)
Compelling...profoundly moving (Leyla Sanai)
A pleasure from start to finish…WHERE MY HEART USED TO BEAT is that rare book, a page-turning read that also has a significant intellectual and emotional charge. (Alexander Larman)
This is not a wartime tragic romance, or a simple story of trauma. It is much more affecting than that. (Rosemary Goring)
Faulks gets better and better with every book. This is surely one of the year’s best novels. (John Harding)
All stars
Most relevant
Beautifully written and well told; another emotional tale of a mans journey full circle with his life embracing WW2 , psychiatry and of course human relationships. A great listen.

Faulks does it again

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Sebastian Faulks captures beautifully the wounds to the heart and soul which can transmit themselves through the generations forming a deep unconscious connection and a sense of calling. The language and finely crafted descriptions bring the worlds of War and survival in battle and in postwar Britain alive aided also by the reading of David Sibley.

Journey through wartime generations

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What an engrossing novel beautifully written and well-read, I had not foreseen some of the revelations at the end and, after I'd finished listening, sat for a long time reflecting on it. I felt incredibly moved by it.
I have only one complaint - why do the producers, editors, or whoever, not listen to the recordings right through? Near the end of Chapter 15 is an interruption, where the narrator stops and speaks out of character, to re-records something - it completely broke the spell! This seems to occur quite often in audiobooks and it's irritating and unprofessional. I'm just glad it wasn't in the final chapter or it might have completely ruined the experience.
Other than that, a fabulous listen.

Enthralling and moving

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this is a very moving and intriguing story could not stop listening highly recommended ..

1

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This is a well written and intelligent book that is well crafted and full of "meat". The story flits from the first world war to the second and to the present, and builds on these experiences of the main character. It is sad and sometimes funny and occasionally a little implausible, but has you gripped to the end. However, the end is very abrupt but leaves you understanding so much about the characters and their motivations and brings the whole story together. A very good read that gets you thinking!

A very well written and poignant story

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