The general plot given in the synopsis promised quite a punch, plus the praise for the author’s works in general made me an expectant reader. That proved to be disastrous.

As soon as I started reading this book, I was immediately happy to note that the writing is really, really good and so did the historical research that the author did. Set at the end of the 19th century, Brodie takes across Europe from Scotland to Russia, to France with vivid details. Brodie Moncur is a piano tuner in Edinburgh in 1890s and when given a chance to move away from his home, his country to Paris, he grabs it with both hands because his life at home wasn’t enough for him at the time.

There he meets with a talented pianist, John Kilbarron and he is spotted by Kilbarron for his talent not only as a tuner but also as someone who really knows the piano. The way Boyd gives us the imagery when it comes to Brodie talent is absolutely lovely. Truly. It made me want to learn more about piano in general and that is also how Brodie gets to bring a representative like Kilbarron to the company. As Brodie and Kilbarron start traveling, Brodie finds himself fascinated and later in love with Lika Brum.

Now, here things start to get dicey for me. Lika is shown to be this absolutely enticing and intriguing beauty whose only purpose in the book seems to be create chaos out of people’s lives. I never really understood her or found out more about her personality. I need to know the characters and how they work and why they act the way they do, and while I am not so demanding as to want every little detail. I have to say that I wasn’t given much at all.

Other characters in the book were also given much historical detail but not enough personality for me truly find this an engaging story. There’s a rather alarming number of times the female breasts are written about, and masturbation. Oh, boy. I mean, who keeps a record of the number of times one has had sex and the number of times one has had to masturbate? I hope I never know the answer. I hesitate to call the relationship of Brodie and Lika romantic, I really didn’t find much romance in it if I am being honest.

For a book with so much potential, it never reached the summit that was promised, or rather that was hinted at. I am truly disappointed in that, overall, a rather thin and not quite engaging book unfortunately. I wish there was more because the writing does hint at the potential but with such problems as lack of character personalities and unnecessary additions near the end of the novel, it all made for a muddy read. Fans of historical fiction might find it interesting because of the research that went into it.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Books, and the author William Boyd.
I am a big fan of all of William Boyd's novels and his writing style, and 'Love is Blind' was no different.
There is no doubt that it is slower paced than some of his other work, and arguably felt slightly lacking in action and suspense at times, but as always it was beautifully written and very involving.
The characters were convincing and well rounded, and Boyd's descriptive prose meant that every setting and scenario was painted incredibly vividly.
A pleasant and diverting read, but definitely not as good as Any Human Heart, Waiting for Sunrise, or Ordinary Thunderstorms.
I would still recommend this book, and am happy to have read it!

William Boyd's settings and stories are so diverse, it's never easy to predict what's in store. I've read a few of his novels and each has been totally different. He has an exceptional talent for detail; whether it's dialogue, character or something technical, he writes in such a compelling way that the reader is immediately drawn in.

Love is Blind is largely a story of love, lust and obsession and one man's journey. The narrative starts in Scotland where Brodie Moncur, the son of a dour churchman leaves the clutches of his father to start life a new life in Edinburgh. He becomes a piano tuner and I was amazed at how much I learned about this particular skill. For me, the detail really added to the story and developed Moncur as a character. When he's sent to Paris, he meets and becomes infatuated with a Russian and the machinations really start. Every place is vibrant and the characters feel like real people. It's almost like watching a true story. Events are so well depicted you feel part of them.

I didn't want this book to end and savoured every detail. Boyd remains one of my favourite contemporary authors and his storytelling is first rate.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

William Boyd writes books you can get lost in. In Any Human Heart and The New Confessions so rich is his mix of fact and fiction that he almost convinced me he was writing about the life of a real people. He wasn't of course, but I became so immersed in the lives of Logan Mountstuart and John James Todd that I really found it hard to accept I was reading a piece if fiction. I’d lived the life of these characters and at the end of both books I experienced a tearful moment when I reached the final page. Here he manages to do it again, this time we are introduced to a piano tuner named Brodie Moncur. We’re close to the end of the 19th century and Brodie is 24 years old. He works for the Channon Piano Company at their Edinburgh showroom and we follow him through the ups and down of his working life, track his physical health, meet his large family and travel as far and wide as France, Switzerland, Russia and the little known Andaman Islands (in the Bay of Bengal if you're wondering). But most of all we get to share his obsession with a Russian opera singer called Lika. I’ll warn you in advance, it’s an emotional journey.

It's soon recognised that Brodie possesses an energy and an entrepreneurial spirit that would serve the company well in helping grow its new shop in Paris and he is dispatched forthwith. But before he goes, he returns to the small rural town in which he grew up to visit his family. His father is the local clergyman – and a real Hellfire preacher he is, too – and he demonstrates an unexplained animus towards Brodie. After a testing couple of days spent with his large family he’s glad to make his escape. Once in Paris he meets resistance from the shop manager, the son of the company owner, but he manages to push through a number of his ideas which includes the recruitment of a top piano player to publicise their brand. It will cost money and it's a bit of a gamble, but Brodie is convinced it’ll bring significant dividends. It's at this point that John Kilbarron (the ‘Irish Listz’) enters the picture… together with his lover, Lika.

Boyd brilliantly brings the whole thing to life with his rich descriptions of time and place and razor sharp dialogue. Each character is vividly described – none more so than Kilbarron’s sinister brother, Malachi - and even the minor figures seem to be original and interesting. And there are sufficient historical references and instances of casual name dropping to make the whole thing feel real.

As the book progresses the tension level fluctuates. There is one brilliant set piece I won't go into, but it’s so well done I sure my eyes were bulging out of my head as I read it. If you get to read this book you’ll know this event when you reach it. But if I have a bone to pick it’s that the dance between Brodie and the Kilbarron brothers does seem to go on a little too long and, in fact, there are a few sections that did feel unnecessarily protracted. It all comes out in the wash though and by the end I was feeling that my investment in wading through the slower sections had paid off. By this point I really did have the feeling that I fully understood Brodie – I was virtually living inside his head – I believed that I was tuned into his line of thought and fully understood his (sometimes drastic) actions. I didn't know how was all going to play out but I really wanted some closure, some happiness for Brodie. And did I shed a tear when I reached the end? Yes, I'm afraid I did.

Another superb offering form this brilliantly gifted writer, who I've admired for some years. I've now read a dozen or so of his books and I'm blown away by his inventiveness, the diversity of his stories and above all the way in which, in his best work, he invites the reader to become a part of the story – to become, in fact, the lead character and to experience their life as if it were your own. Quite a trick that.

Readable, likeable, beautifully written and plotted, lovely characters and a broad sweeping storyline - what's not to like?

A master of the art still in excellent form.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Love is Blind courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. It was beautifully written and as easy to read as I always find William Boyd's books. A very interesting tale about a young Scots piano tuner named Brodie Moncur who fell in love with a rather one-sided but beautiful woman known as Lika. Love is certainly blind and the story follows his life as he travels around the world tuning pianos, loving Lika and making friends and enemies. I learned more about piano tuning than I ever thought possible. A very satisfying read and one I have no hesitation in recommending.

William Boyd knows how to tell a good story; well researched, historical detail and good characterisation. I liked this story about Brodie Moncur and his hopeless pursuit of the beautiful Russian love of his life. Like a lot of his recent novels the book sprawls across time, in this case from late Victorian to just before the First World War and the narrative travels from Edinburgh to Paris, the south of France, Geneva and Trieste. Considering that Brodie Moncur is just a piano tuner that's a pretty amazing life story!

The story is blighted by the illness which eventually will kill him and his relationship with the lovely Lika and the evil Killbarron brothers who also make an effort in that direction. Along the way, we encounter Brodie's shellshocked Victorian family and their horrible father and a range of people who help or hinder him. It is the detail in the relationships which William Boyd develops for his characters which make them come to life. What it is like to live with the diagnosis of tuberculosis before antibiotics is also well explored and you can also learn something about piano tuning and music.

When you say that a writer tells a good story what you must mean is that they have this control of the narrative in time and place and they create realism and an authenticity which the reader can engage with. The way this story unravels reminds me of a John Buchan novel - a sequence of events sometimes rooted in normality and at others quite extraordinary but all held together by narrative skill.

If you wanted to carp, you might think that the lovers could really have disappeared quite effectively in Europe at that time let alone in Russia. There are times when Lika comes over as a bit Greta Garbo and when Malachi Killbarron is almost too Machiavellian and devilish in his pursuit of Brodie but hey ho it's a great story and it will one day make a film with a super soundtrack.

The life of Brodie Moncur and his travels throughout Europe and further. Atmospheric and descriptive, this book follows Scotsman Brodie Moncur, a piano tuner, from his early 20s in Edinburgh. He escapes his dull life as the elder son of a violent and bad-tempered Scottish minister by gaining employment with a firm of piano manufacturers and becomes an expert and sought-after piano tuner. His employment takes him from Edinburgh to Paris, then Russia. His employment by John Kilbarron, a famous pianist, complicates his life and he falls deeply in love with Lika, a Russian singer, but all is not quite what it seems. A number of plot twists eventually take him to the Andaman Islands, where his story ends . . .

Boyd displays his customary skill as he weaves a fascinating tale. The action sweeps across late 19th century Europe and enthralls all the way.

Excellent characterisation made this book very readable, but I'm not sure it was one of William Boyd's best. There was an air of anticipation throughout which didn't quite live up to expectation as we followed the highs and lows of Brodie Moncur's life.

Like all of William Boyd’s books, this was a wonderful read. The characterisation, the attention to detail about the history and era that the novel was set was great. I especially enjoyed learning about how a piano tuner plied his trade. Fascinating and thank you for the opportunity to review. .

I thoroughly enjoyed this sweeping tale of a piano-tuner and his life, love and travels, beginning at the end of the 19th century. Brodie Moncur is a gifted piano-tuner who leaves his Scottish home and overbearing father to seek work, first in Edinburgh, and then as his technical and entrepreneurial skills are rewarded, he is sent by his employer, Channon, the piano manufacturers,to work in Paris. Here, he strives to increase piano sales by forging an agreement with a famous Irish pianist. While working with this man, Kilbarron, Moncur meets Lika, a Russian singer who will be the love of his life. The story ranges far and wide, from Paris to Russia, and then further afield to exotic climes. William Boyd's writing is always marvellous, and the reader is immersed in the characters' lives and times, whether it be Edinburgh or fin-de-siecle Paris.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

What a brilliant book spanning two centuries it gave an insight into life in the late nineteenth century. From the Scottish Borders to France and Russia it was an epic tale that was difficult to put down. Probably one of the best novels I have read in a long time. Highly recommended.

I found this an interesting read with an unusual, but certainly not mundane, occupation of piano tuner at its heart. I enjoyed following Brodie's travels and fortunes through Scotland, France, Russia and beyond, although I'm not sure how realistic his rise to the upper echelons of his profession would have been at the turn of the 20th Century, when this is set. I liked his fraught family relationships and his interactions with his employers, but the most enduring parts were those with his obsessive love, Lika. I found the novel well-written on the whole, as I would expect from William Boyd, although it could have been a little more tightly edited in parts to avoid repetition and the occasional rambling. However I was thoroughly absorbed throughout and was sorry to see it end so suddenly.

Love is Blind is an initially engaging novel, but i’m afraid i became increasingly frustrated with it as the narrative progressed. The varied settings are brought convincingly to life, although again this was stronger in the earlier sections than later. I’d suggest this was down to “love having blinded” and therefore less reliance on place, but there remained lots of description and evidence of research, it just didnt feel as real in thee later stages. There is a reliance on banal sex scenes - nothing entertaining enough to reach the heights of the bad sex awards, just not essential to progress the story.

I was convinced by Moncur’s (the central character) depth of obsession with the love of his life, but was just as frustrated at his inability to recognise certain key facts and statements - beyog “love blindness” and into “this is a convenient narrative place to realise this fact”. Overall, i was disappointed with Love is Blind and had expected more from Boyd.

Well, there are ways to write about physical love, lust and desire but this isn't it - for me, at any rate. Boyd's prose is no more than workmanlike in this book which manages to be both bogged down in detail (why do we need to know precisely which brand of cigarettes each character smokes? Oh yes, because Boyd researched them) and simultaneously skim the surface when it comes to the personal relationships supposedly at the heart of this book. I never felt, either, that these were people who had grown up in the Victorian period or late nineteenth century - the way they think, speak and act feels utterly contemporary.

The musical backdrop is done well but everything else felt overdramatic, almost operatic, but without the fantasy element that opera uses to, paradoxically, make us 'believe'.

To me this feels overly simple and simplistic in writing and imaginative vision. There are lots of female breasts (lots) and quite a lot of masturbation (not explicit) all of which render sex as a transaction rather than something more emotional, no matter how many times Brodie swears his undying (ha!) love to Lika: 'Brodie kept a running calculation: from September 1898 to May 1899 - no sexual congress with Lika... masturbation was only the briefest consolation.'

On the plus side, there's quite a lot of story here as the tale sweeps from Edinburgh to Paris to St Petersburg and then swoops off to the Andaman Islands. Personally, I found the whole thing rather thin and uninvolving - as an evocation of erotic love, I didn't believe this for a second. Sorry, not for me.

A historical romance, where travel through Paris, Russia and Scotland form the background to the theme of passion. Boyd is an accomplished writer who illuminate the life of a piano-tuner in thrall to a world-famous pianist and his mistress. Not entirely sure why his chose to tell this tale, but enjoyed reading it, would make a lovely film or television series.

A beautifully written book which I would expect from William Boyd. However it does meander quite a bit and a piano tuner’s occupation isn’t the most exciting.. interests no but sadly not his best.

"'You could say,’ Vere mused, ‘that, looking at it from one angle, you’re having an amazing Russian literary experience.’"

In the TLS's recent Booker 50th anniversary edition, various past winners were asked about underrated authors that should have featured more in the prize's reckoning. Thomas Keneally suggested: "William Boyd is a consistently pleasing and illuminating writer. He made it onto the Booker shortlist once with An Ice-Cream War, and – to be honest – should have won it."
(https://the-tls.co.uk/articles/public...)

This commendation drew me to Boyd's new novel, Love is Blind, but I would be very surprised if it caused this year's panel to tary long in their deliberations.

It's a straightforward (overly so) historical romance, set around the turn of the 19th Century around Europe, particularly in Scotland, Russia, Paris and the French coast (Nice, Biarritz).

In the late 1890s, Brodie Moncur is an expert piano tuner, working for a Edinburgh based piano manufacturer, and when the chance arises for him to move to Paris to try to reinvigorate their showroom there he grasps it with both hands. There he meets and forms a business venture with John Kilbarron–“The Irish Liszt” - a brilliant pianist but with fading powers, but their professional relationship is soured as Brodie falls in love with Kilbarron's muse, the soprano Lika Brum. As the novel progresses, Moncur travels across Europe, finding work wherever he goes, following Lika, and pursued in turn by Kilbarron's vengeful brother and business manager, Malachi.

"Not for the first time he gave thanks to the universal nature of his profession. Wherever there were pianos he could find work, one way or another."

Boyd's descriptive prose is his strong point, conjuring up the sights and sounds of the places and time:

"The dog cart clip-clopped through the village and led them past the church, St Mungo’s, still looking new – pure Gothic Revival with flying buttresses, finials wherever a finial could be placed and a tall bell tower with no steeple. Its rowan- and yew-dotted cemetery was crowded with ancient graves, former parishioners, the late, good folk of the Liethen Valley. Then they turned into the gravelled carriage drive of the manse, set in a wide dark garden filled with ornamental conifers – monkey puzzles, larches and cedars – and beech trees. Beeches grew well in the Liethen Valley soil."

And he - via Lika's observation - particularly effectively compares the Scottish highlands to the Russian steppe:

"I feel I could be travelling through a Russian village, so isolated, you know? The mood , the landscape. These small , low houses. The poverty. It’s different, of course, but somehow it makes me feel back home."

But Boyd is rather less successful conveying the historical background to the era, which is simply dropped in as lists of background events whenever Brodie picks up a newspaper:

"He read about the continuing animosities of the Dreyfus Affair, the celebrations being organized around Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the economic tribulations facing President McKinley , and a review of a shocking new novel called Dracula."

And the plot itself, while a reasonable page turner, was a little overwrought and contrived for my literary taste.

A couple of particular bugbears for me in the book - although in each case one hopes the author was aware even if the characters aren't.

First, at one key point, Brodie's tyrannical father, Malky Moncur, a famously impassioned, if rather hypocritical, preacher, bases a sermon on an Apocryphal text to indirectly condemn his son: but the verses quoted bear no resemblance to any version of Baruch 6 I have seen (did Malky simply invent them? or Boyd?)

"Regulars turned the pages of their Bibles looking for the verses that Malky had chosen as his text for his sermon. It was, Brodie saw, very obscure, even for Malky. From the Apocrypha, the Book of Baruch, chapter six , verses ten to twelve. He could see people vainly flicking through their Bibles, searching for it.
...
‘Now, whereof Nerias knew that his son Sedacius was caught in the snares of harlots and indeed had lusted after his brother’s wife, Ruth, and his brother’s daughter, Esther, and showed no remorse, yet Nerias suffered his son to live in his own house, yea, and fed him and his servants also. For Nerias, the Levite, was a righteous man. And the people saw the wisdom of the righteous man and Sedacius was spurned by the Levites, they spake not of him. There was a void, thereof. He was forgotten as a cloud melted by the force of the noonday sun, as smoke dispersed by a breeze. He was shadowless, a nothing, less than a mote of dust.’"

The second bothered me more. As Brodie and Lika travel around, the novel tells us "between them, they made a modest living, supplemented by their nights gambling with the martingale system in Biarritz’s casino."

Brodie describes his 'foolproof' system:

"I only played roulette – you know what a hopeless gambler I am. I played a simple martingale system: doubling my stake (2 fr) when I lost and pocketing my winnings when I won. You only bet on 2 to 1 odds. Red or black, odd or even. By the law of averages you will win at some stage. The only strange thing – if you double your stake each time you lose – is that sometimes you can be betting 40 francs to win 2 – so you need a substantial float."

Except of course this system is based on a mathematical fallacy. Even if the chances of winning were genuinely 2-to-1 (in practice, roulette is biased to the house) the expected winnings are zero. The last sentence highlights why - you don't just need a 'substantial float', you need an infinite one (and a casino prepared to extend you infinite credit lines). Sooner or later, the gambler will lose his entire float, the losses from which will balance out the modest winnings. I assumed that the flaw in the system would ultimately form a key plot point - but when it didn't it caused me to wonder if the author saw the flaw.

Overall, a pleasant but not particularly stimulating read. 3 stars less one for the dubious scriptural and mathematical references.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Brodie Moncur is a piano tuner when we first meet him, working for Channons in Edinburgh at the end of the 19th century and struggling in his relationship with his domineering father. When an opportunity arises for Brodie to work in Paris, he leaves Scotland and embarks on new challenges and a romance that takes him on further travels, to St Petersburg and various other places in turn of the century Europe.

Boyd's writing about place is captivating - I really loved the descriptions of St Petersburg and Paris in particular. The whole novel felt very immersive as the reader follows Brodie through his career and choices, the ups and downs feeling both realistic and natural. The novel is also well paced and kept my interest to the end, although I'll admit that I was disappointed with the ending - without giving any spoilers, I just thought it would be more interesting given what had gone before.

Overall, this is a novel that sweeps through turn of the century Europe with an engaging protagonist and lots to keep the reader interested. It's beautifully written and well researched throughout, although my impressions of the book were coloured by my reaction to the final scenes.