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Waiting for Sunrise [Kindle Edition]

William Boyd (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (173 customer reviews)
Print List Price: £7.99
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Product Description

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
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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 (173 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #750 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 41 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Waiting for the ending 13 Mar 2012
By Michael Watson TOP 500 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..... Read more ›
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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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98 of 109 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Anticlimactic 24 Feb 2012
By M. D. Smart VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
In his novel Restless, William Boyd pulled off the difficult trick of marrying a tense wartime thriller with an affecting study of a daughter coming to terms with the knowledge that her mother is not the person she thought she knew. The result was a book that had the compulsive appeal of a commercial page-turner with the satisfying emotional depth of the literary fiction Boyd is known for. In his latest title, Waiting For Sunrise, he attempts the same feat - sadly, the results this time are less successful, and it adds up to a disappointing and disjointed whole.

The main problem with Waiting For Sunrise is it appears to be two disparate novels cobbled together. It begins in pre-WWI Vienna as we follow a young English actor, Lysander Rief, who has come to seek a cure for a debilitating sexual problem through psychoanalysis. During his stay he meets a free-spirited sculptor, Hettie Bull, and they begin an intense affair which apparently cures his 'problem'. All seems to be going well when Lysander suddenly finds himself in serious trouble and has to return to England. From that point the novel morphs into an espionage thriller, with Lysander pressured into assisting the War Office with breaking a secret code and unmasking a traitor.

In fact, both these plot strands are gripping, up to a point; we get a fascinating glimpse of pre-war Europe, an insight into psychoanalysis and a passionate love story in the first section, while the spy story is genuinely thrilling for the most part, with plot twists galore and almost every supporting character coming under suspicion. It even begins to seem that these two halves of the story may be connected after all, and I was enjoying the book a great deal...until the last few chapters.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars is Wiiliam Boyd losing his touch?
Is William Boyd losing his touch? After reading such excellent novels as Brazaville Beach, The New Confessions and Any Human Heart by the author, this book seems to be something of... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Mr. Robert Marsland
3.0 out of 5 stars Nice period review of upper middle class life in WW1.
Nice period review of upper middle class life in WW1.

But I became bored of the plot in which there are too many hints at who was the baddy?
Published 10 days ago by Hugh Collins
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent read
I'm a Boyd fan anyway, so always tackle one of his books with expectation of enjoyment. Not disappointed with this book
Published 11 days ago by anne
3.0 out of 5 stars disappointing
My husband said it was the best William Boyd he had read. My son agreed- he had given it to my husband as a Christmas present. Thus advised, I looked forward to reading it. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Bethany Askew
4.0 out of 5 stars book
Unusual, quirky - odd subject matter - Vienna early 1900s - loosely based around Freud - central character v strong and credible throughout - didn't think I'd like it but taken it... Read more
Published 16 days ago by squirrel 59
4.0 out of 5 stars Boyd again surprises and entertains
I have read his most recent books having discovered him via 'Ordinary Thunderstorms' which I thought was among my top 10 best ever reads. So was looking forward to his latest. Read more
Published 18 days ago by Bucket
5.0 out of 5 stars Waiting for Sunrise, William Boyd
I found this book a very good read and an exciting story, but at the same time, William Boyd uses wonderful language, descriptions and phrases.
Published 20 days ago by Mothership
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not great, compared to other William Boyd novels
I definitely enjoyed this book - it had me page turning and looking for excuses to get back to it in between a busy schedule more so than others, so I was undoubtedly hooked by it. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Lazy Lee
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 25 days 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 26 days ago by Emer O'Reilly
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