The Heart Broke In - Tapa dura

Addictive . . . Meek is a novelist of Dostoevskyan intensity . . . encompassing blackmail, murder and sexual infidelity. You have to admire the scope and ambition of this operatic saga * * Guardian * * A book about how to be good in bad times * * BBC Radio 4 * * The Heart Broke In has a Dickensian cast list [and] Meek's range, humour and boldness are a joy -- Louise Doughty * * Observer * * This is a big juicy slab of a book, as thrilling and nourishing as a Victorian three-parter -- Whynn Weldon * * Spectator * * Set in the near future, [Meek's] sinister media underworld hits on the zeitgeist . . . the characterisation is affectionate and the story is gripping * * We Love This Book * * Feels like a TV mini-series * * Daily Mail * * Intelligent, compelling and epic in scale * * Woman & Home * * An enjoyable, thought-provoking read, going beyond satire to throw the questions back to the reader -- Andrea Mullaney * * Scotland on Sunday * * Whizzes along for most of its 550 pages, via plots and subplots encompassing blackmail, murder and sexual infidelity, leaving the reader excited and impressed and, if a little confused, then enjoyably so . . . you have to admire the scope and ambition of this operatic saga -- Theo Tait * * Guardian * * The Heart Broke In is a realistic slice of life at the bench, reflect-ing both the admirable and the unflattering qualities of scientists * * Nature Magazine * * Page-turning and absorbing -- Victoria Moore * * Daily Mail * * James Meek is Britain's answer to Don DeLillo -- Brian Morton * * Independent * * This page-turning tale ranges over contemporary London like a magnet, tugging up the nuggets of friction that make a great book . . . the writing is at times so lovely that it shouldn't be rushed, but savoured -- Louise Chunn * * Psychologies Magazine * * Meek's characterization is excellent and the dilemmas he gives the players in his drama are convincing and intense enough to hurt . . . he manages to do this while keeping the pages turning as fast as any thriller. This is a feast of a novel, to which I shall return again and again -- Elsbeth Linder * * Book Oxygen * * Meeks looks at the question of family, what it means and how actions affect the people in it. He weaves complicated lives, entwines characters in layers and layers of history until they can't breathe or escape from each other -- Claire Snook * * Bookmunch * * Meek's novel is energised by a dynamic interplay of social, cultural, philosophical and scientific ideas, and as befits a big, serious fiction, it has the courage to address big, serious issues -- Trevor Lewis * * The Sunday Times * * A novel shimmering with black humour, which for the sheer verve of the writing deserves a long shelf life -- Lucy Beresford * * The Sunday Telegraph * * The burning desire to discover how it all pans out propels one to finish this bravura book by a remarkable writer * * The Lady * * A wonderfully sharp, intelligently observed and often very funny novel -- Toby Clements * * The Telegraph * * Plenty to relish in this topical novel pitched enjoyably between thriller and satire * * Metro * * The Heart Broke In is an absorbing family saga with Forsterian ambitions . . . In this compelling novel Meek, with his vivid characterisation and narrative drive, succeeds in engaging the heart as well as the head -- Annalema McAfee * * Financial Times * * The Heart Broke In has a dizzying reach, playing science off religion, cynics against lovers, atheists against believers . . . it's a book that doesn't want to do your thinking for you -- Olivia Cole * * GQ * * The lyricism and wry wit with which Meek writes means this is a fine novel, and an excellent representation of how we live now -- Daniel Davies * * The Skinny * * One of the country's finest writers * * GQ * * James Meek's new novel has all the urgent readability of his previous work combined with a wide-ranging vision of social and personal responsibility that's very rare in current fiction. I suppose we could call it a moral thriller. Whatever we call it, I was enormously impressed. * * Philip Pullman * * An engrossing novel structured around grand eternal themes but pin-sharp and peopled with characters you wish you knew * * Good Book Guide * * Lively and compelling -- William Leith * * Evening Standard * * While written with the accessibility of a mainstream novel, this is an ideas-heavy book that works on various levels: as a psychological thriller of sorts, a family saga and a meditation on a host of issues which, like the DNA in our cells, have never been put together in quite this way before -- Alastair Mabbott * * The Herald Scotland * * This is a state-of-the-nation novel that deals with so many contemporary issues * * Gook Book Guide * * Compulsively readable . . . The Heart Broke In has a dizzying reach, playing science off against religion, cynics against lovers, atheists against believers . . . It's a book that doesn't want to do your thinking for you -- Olivia Cole * * GQ * * Meek presents a nuanced exploration of the drives and desires of all his characters . . . A fine novel * * The Skinny * * Meek evokes the contemporary bohemian hinterlands of London . . . an absorbing family saga with Forsterian ambitions . . . Meek, with his vivid characterisation and narrative drive, succeeds in engaging the heart as well as the head -- Annalema McAfee * * Financial Times * * Its examination of morality in a post-religious society is thoroughly modern . . . Meek is wincingly good when describing the media -- Alex Peake-Tomkinson * * Times Literary Supplement * * A compellingly readable and entertaining moral thriller . . . brave and challenging -- Robin Leggett * * Thebookbag * *

Would you betray someone you love to give them what they want? Bec Shepherd is a malaria researcher struggling to lead a good life. Ritchie, her reprobate brother, is a rock star turned TV producer. When Bec refuses an offer of marriage from a powerful newspaper editor and Ritchie's indiscretions catch up with him, brother and sister are forced to choose between loyalty and betrayal. The Heart Broke In is an old-fashioned story of modern times, a rich, ambitious family drama of love, death and money in the era of gene therapy and Internet exposes. From the author of the 'spellbinding' (Guardian), 'quite extraordinary' (Philip Pullman), 'startlingly original' (Mail on Sunday) novel, The People's Act of Love