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Waiting for Sunrise
 
 

Waiting for Sunrise [Kindle Edition]

William Boyd
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)

Print List Price: £7.99
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Review

'... it is consistently well written, and very well read by Roger May' --The Independent

'Boyd has probably written more truly classic books than any of his contemporaries' --The Sunday Telegraph

'Boyd is English fiction's master storyteller' --The Independent

Review

William Boyd is one of our most cherished writers ... Waiting for Sunrise is as much A Dance to the Music of Time as Any Human Heart, a giddy burlesque where characters, particularly figures of erotic obsession, vanish only to reappear unexpectedly ... It's the sort of novel you finish then begin again to revisit your favourite bits ... More than anything, Waiting for Sunrise is a gleeful celebration of storytelling - sly, clever, frequently hilarious, always involving. For me at least this is the literary event of the year The Times There are few more reliable literary pleasures than a Boyd novel. Over three decades he has established himself as one of Britain's most popular and highly regarded novelists ... He is a novelist who writes intelligent books about plausible and fully rounded characters, brimming with challenging ideas and themes. Above all, he is a storyteller nonpareil -- Mick Brown Telegraph Boyd guides the reader with a master's hand. It's ages since I read a novel that offers such breathlessly readable narrative enjoyment, such page-by-page storytelling confidence and solidity. Waiting for Sunrise is a homage to thriller writers, spy novels and crime detection stories and films from a hundred years ago, stretching from Sherlock Holmes, via Buchan and Greene, to Hitchcock Independent An intricately plotted world of spies, lies and the double cross ... a coming of age story about an individual's self enlightenment, as much as a sui generis thriller. Waiting for Sunrise proves that rarest of beasts: a tantalisingly experimental work that is also an immensely satisfying page turner Sunday Telegraph

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 665 KB
  • Print Length: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (16 Feb 2012)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B006X9QJNE
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #629 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Waiting for the ending 13 Mar 2012
By Michael Watson TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
It makes a change to have a spy thriller set in Vienna around the turn of the first world war and William Boyd gets to grips with this one very well. In fact, if you hadn't read the blurb, you might be thinking this was a rather lame love affair doomed to failure thanks to the up and coming horror of the war.

But Lysander Rief, there's a name and a half, up-and-coming actor is drawn into the spying game little by little and he turns out to be rather good at it. Whilst trying to sort out his psychological problems with a colleague of Freud in Vienna, he is asked to obtain the code in order to break secret messages emanating from the UK and finishing up where they shouldn't be! He does this with such aplomb that, despite a near death situation, he is then rehabilitated to London, his personal problems resolved and so the fun begins.

The author weaves an excellent spy chase from this point. Rief's earlier contacts catch up with him, he finds himself investigating a spy who may well be more closely connected that he would wish and those around him each appear to be the possible suspect. The ending is odd. To explain it gives away too much information but there we are. I enjoyed the book. The atmosphere in Austria and in London is excellently described especially given the fast approaching circumstances. The inclusion of a Zeppelin adds a little flavour to the mix and the storyline makes you turn the pages. Whether or not there is room for a follow-on remains to be seen but the main protagonist is a character who could be developed for future forays into the spying world, after all, who better than an actor to confuse the enemy.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars No Passport Required... 7 Mar 2012
By Boot-Boy VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's always a delight when a new William Boyd novel hits the bookshops. Or in my case, Amazon. After so many satisfying encounters with this writer, I've built up such a lasting confidence in his elegant prose and polished storytelling that I know there's no real possibility of a dud or a disappointment. Just unalloyed pleasure and thought-provoking entertainment delivered by a writer at the top of his game - always to be relied upon to produce a gripping mix of literary tour de force and mass market page-turner. And this latest Boyd is no exception. Within just a few lines, and with no passport required, I was snatched up and swept off to Vienna, 1913, and put right there on the corner of Augustinerstrasse as Boyd's protagonist, the actor Lysander Rief, makes his hatless, fretting way right past me, close enough for me to reach out and touch him. And that was that... I was hooked, completely beguiled, following Rief from a psychiatrist's divan into a tempestuous and seductively described affair that ends with a daring and dramatic escape from Vienna to Trieste. And that's just the first hundred pages. Back in Blighty Rief's past catches up with him and he's recruited by British Intelligence, inveigled into a code-breaking spy game that provides twists and turns aplenty, the action breathless, shocking, and occasionally disturbing. From the wartime trenches of northern France to the shadowy spy-strewn streets of Geneva, and from London's Zeppelin-blitzed Whitehall and West End to Home Counties country houses and genteel south coast hostelries, Boyd controls the narrative with a sure and certain touch, his command of period and place as precise and pleasing as ever. If there are occasional echoes here of Crouchback and Ryder (wrong war, I know, but..), and of MacEwan, Faulks and Le Carré, these are never more than echoes - the voice, the tone, the language, the guiding hand unmistakeably and satisfyingly Boyd's at his storytelling best. Other reviewers have mentioned a disappointment with the book's ending - that it was too swift, too hurried, or too enigmatic. The only reason I was disappointed with the ending was because... well, because it was the end. Like every other Boyd book I've read, I could quite easily and happily have spent another hundred pages - even more - in the company of Lysander Rief, and in the world Boyd conjured up for me. I know I'm maybe giving the game away, but whatever will happen to him in the remaining years of the Great War? Will his acting career take off? Will he move from stage to screen? Will there be more assignments with British Intelligence? And what about Blanche and Hettie and Lothar? I only wish I could tell you...
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74 of 81 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars superb story telling 16 Feb 2012
By markr TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a highly readable novel which will keep you turning pages into the night...The story focuses around the character of Lysander Rief, a young English actor who is drawn by events into the world of wartime spies. Opening in 1913, in Vienna, shortly before the outbreak of war, the story is driven along by the chance meeting, and subsequent tempestuous relationship, of Lysander, and a young English sculptress. Arrested for a crime he did not commit, Lysander finds the consequences taking over his life, taking him deeper and deeper into a chain of events in which nothing is quite what it seems.

As always with William Boyd, this is superbly crafted fiction, beautifully written, and compulsive reading

Superb - highly recommended
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Meteroic pace, character a bit cardboard
The central character, Lysander Reif, is the son of a famous actor and also an actor in his own right but, significantly, he has an embarrassing sexual difficulty for which, it... Read more
Published 1 day ago by Susanna Deakin
4.0 out of 5 stars Good at setting the scene but not as good as Restless.
Enjoyed the book and read it in 2 days, however I felt as if some parts of the story line e.g. Lothar, Hettie seemed unfinished.
Published 2 days ago by Emer O'Reilly
4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written story that doesn't quite hang together...
***Spoilers***

Hi. Just finished this book and whilst I didn't not enjoy it by the end I felt a little short changed. Read more
Published 2 days ago by M. Duffy
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
EXcellent - very readable and page turning. Got into the book straight away and could not put in down. Wonderful author
Published 3 days ago by pamela hollins
4.0 out of 5 stars Pure fantasy.
The essence of this book reminded me of 'The man who got out of the window and adisappeared'
in the sense that it was like a dream where everything happens that you don't... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Mrs. Nm Birkett
1.0 out of 5 stars read another Boyd
I've read many William Boyd novels over the years and enjoyed them but he can be a bit hit and miss. This is definitely the latter. Read more
Published 6 days ago by pixie freak
4.0 out of 5 stars A good read
I really enjoyed this book, it read like a 1913 James Bond, the main character Lysander Rief must have been blessed with nine lives and certainly used all but one of them in the... Read more
Published 7 days ago by J. M. Davies
4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping
I really enjoyed the book. It had lots of twists and turns and left me with quite a lot of questions also, but I haven't read anything gy William Boyd that I haven't enjoyed.
Published 11 days ago by Heather Booth
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Story
The beginning is rather disappointing but then developes into an exciting story, difficult to put down. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Published 13 days ago by Terence Doherty
5.0 out of 5 stars great read
i have been a fan of william boyd for a long time and once again he doesnt disappoint.
looking forward to the next one
Published 17 days ago by Daniel T. Pugh
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