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Love Is Blind

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Love Is Blind

By: William Boyd
Narrated by: Roy McMillan
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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Love is Blind by William Boyd.

Love is Blind 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 19th century becomes the 20th.

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 20th century, Love is Blind is a masterly new novel from one of Britain's best loved storytellers.

©2018 William Boyd (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Victorian Heartfelt Russia Celebrity

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All stars
Most relevant
This novel has everything: a heart-rending and unusual love story, combined with such a wealth of period detail as to bring life at the beginning of the twentieth century vividly to life in front of your eyes. William Boyd paints wonderful landscapes and cityscapes but doesn’t get bogged down in too much description, so the story moves along at a pace, with never a dull or jarring moment. I can’t praise this book enough!
Add to the mix a superb narrator who gets the tone exactly right and you have a dozen hours or so of unadulterated listening pleasure. His voice manages to capture the loving tenderness of the ill-starred couple and the sheer malevolence of the ‘baddies’ perfectly. At times I was moved to tears, at others frightened out of my life! Highly recommended.

Beautifully written and read

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This is not my usual taste in books but it was written by William Boyd, and that makes it something I would explore. I was not disappointed.

The story is a beautiful period piece that describes time and places in a beautiful way and develops a plot and characters you naturally care for; Brodie Moncur became real and his travels and period became alive, and his fictitious life was real for a few spackling hours.

A definite yes, if you like good writing and something delicate.

We see very little when we want to.

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Wow! I love this author anyway but this was astoundingly good, well researched, fascinating and at times hilarious. There was a passage where the language was so foul it made one blush (said inside the swearer's head) followed by such a gentlemanly reply to the object of the profaner. Excellent! A perfect package for me really. The narrator was empathetic to the story and with so many accurate accents. I think I would like a prequel to this and find out more about Brody's awful father. The details of the nuances of piano tuning were wonderful - who knew?? I am so sorry to have fininished this - please get to work immediately Mr Boyd.

Faultless narration. Amazing story

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Somehow I’d missed this novel by one of my favourite writers. I both read and listened on audible so have ‘read’ it in a few days. As ever, Boyd’s narrative flows and it’s beautifully written with creativity and perfect evocation of time and place. The audible narration is also outstanding, felt absolutely right. Thoroughly recommended!

Vintage William Boyd

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the narrator was brilliant...lovely accents etc
story v sad but engrossing
just loved Brodie....his lover was too selfish...always knew he loved her more than she loved him.....

totally engrossing novel

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