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Love is Blind

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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.

Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Music Romance Victorian Heartfelt Russia Celebrity

Critic reviews

Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent
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
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
Boyd's talents as a rollicking storytelling [are] full on display in this historical blockbuster
A deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination
He has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries
Boyd is a brilliant novelist
William Boyd is arguably one of Britain's finest living writers
All stars
Most relevant
As moving and brilliant a book as one would expect of Willim Boyd, done marvellous service by the talented reading by Roy McMillan.

Beautifully Read

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This narrator is outstanding. I enjoyed every minute and didn't want it to end. Great and original story. Who would have imagined a piano tuners life could be the theme of a tale which crossed the world from Peebles to the Indian Ocean via Europe.
I now am searching for more from the reader and the writer

Wonderful story brilliantly read

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This brilliant story is a good old fashioned ripping yarn, beautifully narrated by Roy McMIllan.
The pace is fast and it is packed with adventure, love, loss and derring do. It is the sort of book
that takes over your life when reading it, and makes one bereft on finishing. I will never look at a
piano tuner in the same way again..

Wonderful book!

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This epic story of a young piano tuner's life and loves is an absolute delight. The pleasure of having the story read by Roy McMillan is a treat as he is a master of accent and nuance, leaving the listener in no doubt as to who is speaking. He brings Boyd's wonderful humour to the reading – the dinner scene when Brodie's father, the hideous Malky Moncur, becomes increasingly drunk, is brilliant. The story of Brodie Moncur sweeps through Europe and across oceans and yet the focus remains with this sympathetic, appealing young man, loyal and brave, adventurous and caring. William Boyd at his very best.

Wonderful William Boyd

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This is an amazing novel – unpredictable, far reaching both from a literary and a geographical perspective.

It is expertly interpreted by Roy MacMillan, someone who has mastered his art and who entertains his extremely fortunate listeners.

Stunning Odyssey

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