I must say that William Boyd is one of my favourite authors with his writing never disappointing me. ‘ Love is Blind ‘ is a spellbinding story of Brodie Moncur and his life as a piano tuner taking him through out almost all of Europe and his epic love with Russian opera singer Lika Blum bringing him happiness as well as trouble. It is a fascinating historical novel, capturing the essence of 19th and early 20th century life in every detail. The eternal love that Brodie had for Lika is the heart of this book, with Boyd’s magical writing I utterly believe that ‘Love is Blind ‘ whatever happens. One for the definite recommendation.

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.

William Boyd’s new novel is a captivating tale of love, travel and music; it is also a literary game, with Boyd sprinkling references throughout the novel which readers may or may not recognise. It is part classic epistolary novel, part adventure, part meditation on music and art, and part fin de siècle philosophising. At its heart is the doomed love between Brodie Moncur, a piano tuner from Edinburgh, and Lika Blum, a second-rate Russian singer whom Moncur encounters when he is sent off to Paris by his employers. Thus begins the peripatetic wanderings of our protagonist, as he travels all over Europe – and beyond, by the end of the book. The book is full of well-drawn characters, from Moncur’s Presbyterian minister father Malky, to the ‘Irish Liszt’ pianist John Kilbarron and his sinister brother Malachi, and of course the enigmatic Lika Blum, with a complicated past and even more complicated relationship to the two Kilbarron brothers. Along the way Boyd manages to cast a knowing nod to several Scottish writers and stories – from Robert Louis Stevenson, to the imagined (or real?) pursuit of Moncur by Malachi mirroring James Hogg’s ‘Justified Sinner’, to the charming tale of Greyfriars Bobby and his devotion to his dead master. But it is the Russian writer Anton Chekhov who looms largest over the book, with its lady with a dog, a brilliantly written duel scene, and the ending which mirrors exactly Chekhov’s widow’s description of her husband’s death from tuberculosis. Indeed, Chekhov himself seems to appear as a mysterious Russian doctor whom Moncur meets in a health spa in Nice, but his accent is so thick that Moncur doesn’t hear his name well, thinking it sounds like ‘Archibald’. Ultimately, this is a story of lost love and of a literal and metaphorical journey to find meaning and sense. In all of Moncur’s travels across the globe he is also at the mercy of events. It is only with his last trip that he actually chooses where he goes, everything up until then has led him to be sent away or to be exiled. But ‘choose’ is not the right word, for even at the end he is encouraged to spin a globe and stick a pin to decide where he will go, and so he makes his last trip to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This is a novel about meanings, of half-hidden truths and things unseen or blurred (Moncur’s poor eyesight and his bifocal glasses are an apt and constant metaphor throughout the book). It is a novel about coming to understand your place in the wider scheme of things and, ultimately, of coming to accept your fate. And it is a novel about a love that may be blind, and lost, but which comforts and consoles.

Whilst always being aware of William Boyd and thinking I knew what type of writer he is, Love is Blind is the first novel of his which I have read. I had assumed (I have no idea why) he was similar to Graham Greene, a contemporary author writing intelligently, with insight and comment. I was not too far off the mark although for me Boyd does not match up, but who does? However, I did like this book…very much. Set at the turn of the twentieth century, Love is Blind is the story of Brodie Moncur, an unassuming, dependable, loyal piano tuner/repairer/customizer whose skills take him on an improbable yet wholly believable journey. He falls for Lika, head over heels, utterly consumed by his love for her. I found her manipulative and self-serving but love is blind indeed. Having expected Mr Greene (why?) it took me a couple of chapters to pick up on the rhythm of Boyd’s writing but once I did it flowed at just the right pace. It is not a page turner but I was willing the plot to go my way and was eager to reach each conclusion, of which there are many before the final end. Written in the third person, there is a great deal of detail, none of which is superfluous, all of which is fascinating. Boyd’s characterisation is well observed and non-judgemental, allowing the characters to judge each other and the reader to do likewise. It is very much a comment on the human condition, good and bad, love, loyalty, greed, envy, revenge, desire…it’s all there! I would happily read more of Boyd’s novels, although there may always be other authors higher up my “To Be Read” list and there are so many books and so little time… Thank you to NetGalley and Viking for the Advanced Reader Copy of the book, which I have voluntarily reviewed.

This slightly rambling historical novel was very enjoyable. It ranges in setting from rural Scotland to fin de siecle Paris and St Petersburg. In this is bears a similarity to Any Human Heart by the author. For me it was a cross between Rose Tremain's Merivel and Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. Like the protagonist in the latter you are unconvinced that the love interest is "worthy" of the his love /obsession. In this case the beautiful Lika is "slippery" and enigmatic. You do believe the title that love is blind. Even Lika tries to get Brodie to understand the "blindness " of his love. More overtly Brodie the protagonist is "blind". He wears a prototype of some sort of varifocal spectacles and his job as a musical tuner requires fine hearing rather than sight. The best parts for me were the parts set in Brodie's birthplace and his relationship with his fire and brimstone preacher father- shades of Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner ? There are some great scenes set in this house and "kirk" He then "replaces" his alcoholic father with another "father figure", the musician John Kilbarron and his "evil" brother Malachi. Brodie initially meets them with a seemingly mutually beneficial business idea of Kilbarron "promoting" Brodie's employer's pianos. However this is a relationship that soon turns sour especially when Brodie falls in love. Brodie's fatal "flaws" include his love for Lika and his physical illness -tuberculosis. I am glad that Boyd doesn't let modern research about the dangers of smoking intrude into the historical setting. As a modern reader you think why does a man with tuberculosis smoke so much.? This was a great holiday read for me. The narrative had a fast pace and I really enjoyed the story telling but I doubt if this a book I will return to. Tracey Exeter High Street