Awards
2006 Costa Book Award winner
Synopses & Reviews
It is Paris, 1939. At the funeral of her beloved younger brother, twenty-eight year old Eva Delectorskaya notices a stranger. Lucas Romer is a patrician looking Englishman with a secretive air and a persuasive manner. He also has a mysterious connection to Eva's murdered brother. Romer recruits to become a spy for the British government. Soon she is sent to New York City, where she becomes a key player in a complex operation by the British secret service to manipulate the press in order to shift public sentiment and draw America into World War II. In New York she comes to understand the life of a spy: danger and excitement alternating with boredom and loneliness, the potential for both love and betrayal.
Three decades later, Eva has reinvented herself as a respectable English widow, living in a picturesque Cotswold village. No one, not even her daughter Ruth, knows her real identity. But once a spy, always a spy. Sally has far too many secrets, and she has no one to trust. Before it is too late, she must confront the demons of her past. But this time she can't do it alone, she needs her daughter's help. Restless is a brilliant espionage novel and a vivid portrait of the life of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, and based on a remarkable chapter of Anglo-American history, this is storytelling at its finest.
Review
"If an espionage thriller...can be called a cozy, this is it....A somewhat clumsy narrative enlivened by some expertly generated suspense." Booklist
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"some readers may be annoyed by the author's stylistic tics...others will enjoy this glimpse of wartime dirty tricks." Library Journal
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"A bit light on action and intrigue, but a cool, collected effort." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Although Boyd, a deft and stylish storyteller, has delivered an enjoyable read, a skein of loose threads leaves a nagging sense of unfinished business. This is a novel that could be, and probably should be, more..." Los Angeles Times
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"How pleasing that a novel that tackles such serious questions as the relation between past and present, old selves and new identities, love and work, and, of course, illusion versus reality can be such an enjoyable thing to read." Chicago Tribune
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"Boyd has penned a fine tale here....The story of Eva Delectorskaya provides a terrific portrait of a woman caught up in an event that changed the world and her life forever." San Francisco Chronicle
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"Boyd's special virtue is that whatever high-flying action he arranges for his protagonists...he doesn't scant their obstinate humanity." Boston Globe
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"Boyd has written a crackling spy thriller, but more than that, he has evoked the atmosphere of wartime espionage." New York Times
Synopsis
It is Paris, 1939. Twenty-eight year old Eva Delectorskaya is at the funeral of her beloved younger brother. Standing among her family and friends she notices a stranger. Lucas Romer is a patrician looking Englishman with a secretive air and a persuasive manner. He also has a mysterious connection to Kolia, Eva's murdered brother. Romer recruits Eva and soon she is traveling to Scotland to be trained as a spy and work for his underground network. After a successful covert operation in Belgium, she is sent to New York City, where she is involved in manipulating the press in order to shift American public sentiment toward getting involved in WWII.
Three decades on and Eva has buried her dangerous history. She is now Sally Gilmartin, a respectable English widow, living in a picturesque Cotswold village. No one, not even her daughter Ruth, knows her real identity. But once a spy, always a spy. Sally has far too many secrets, and she has no one to trust. Before it is too late, she must confront the demons of her past. This time though she can't do it alone, she needs Ruth's help. Restless is a thrilling espionage novel set during the Second World War and a haunting portrait of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, emotion and history, this is storytelling at its finest.
Synopsis
In December, 2012 The Sundance Channel will air the BBC-produced film RESTLESS starring Charlotte Rampling, Michael Gambon, Hayley Atwell, and Rufus Sewell, based on this novel by William Boyd. Someone is trying to kill Sally Gilmartin. It is the summer of 1976, and the only person she can trust is her daughter, Ruth, a young single mother struggling with her own demons. Now Sally must tell her daughter the truth: She is actually Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian émigré recruited for the British Secret Service in 1939. Soon Ruth is drawn deeper into the astonishing events of her mothers past, including her work in New York City manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward U.S. involvement in Second World War and her dangerous love affair with another spy. Ruth also discovers that her mother has one final assignment. This time, though, Eva cant do it alone—she needs Ruths help. Full of tension and drama, emotion and history, this is storytelling at its finest.
Synopsis
The Richard & Judy bestseller, now a major BBC TV series.
Synopsis
It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment, and this time Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help.
Synopsis
A comic spy caper and international love story, set in Europe in the middle of the last century,
Expo 58 is the latest sublime creation by Jonathan Coe, hailed by Nick Hornby as “probably the best English novelist of his generation.”
Handsome, unassuming Thomas Foley is an employee at the Central Office of Information whose particular biography (Belgian mother, pub-owning father) makes him just the man to oversee the “authentic British pub” that will be erected at the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair. Its the first major expo after World War II, meant to signify unity, but theres inevitable intrigue involving the U.S. and Soviet delegations. In the shadow of an immense, imposingly modern structure called the Atomium, the married Foley becomes both agent and pawn—when hes not falling head over heels for Anneke, his Belgian hostess.
Funny, fast-paced, and genuinely moving, Expo 58 is both a perfect evocation of a moment in history and the welcome return of one of todays finest novelists.
About the Author
William Boyd is the author of eleven novels including A Good Man in Africa, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Any Human Heart, winner of the Prix Jean Monnet and adapted into a Channel 4 drama; Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year, the Yorkshire Post Novel of the Year and a Richard & Judy selection; Ordinary Thunderstorms and, most recently, the Sunday Times bestseller, Waiting for Sunrise. William Boyd lives in London and France.