Very different to his previous work, ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne is a fantastic book that I’m still thinking about several days after finishing it. Moving and heartachingly brilliant, it is a book I would highly recommend.

A brilliant and moving 5 stars.

Set in rural Ireland at the end of the first World War a pregnant unmarried teenager is evicted from her village by the local priest. At only sixteen she decides her baby deserves a better start and entrusts his care to a nun whilst she goes to work at a tea room. Her tough decision goes on to plague her as she tries to make her way in life.
Her Son, Cyril is adopted by a wealthy couple and as time goes on he realises he is attracted to men but it is a sin within his staunch catholic upbringing and against the law in Ireland and for this he suffers greatly, but ultimately will he find the happiness he craves in the end but from different direction?.
The ending to this tale was bittersweet but so right.
Expect to find yourself on a roller coaster of emotions as Boyne unravels his masterful storytelling in this emotional story which can jump from heartache, confusion and misery to joy, love and the fight to survive.
A very enjoyable read that had me gripped throughout.
My thanks go to the author, publisher and Netgalley in providing an arc of this book in return for a honest review.

The Heart Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Title - The Hearts Invisible Furies
Author - John Boyne
Published - Dec '17
Publisher - Black Swan
Genre - #Historical
Pages - 720
Price on Amazon - Paperback - £4.49 Kindle - £4.99
ISBN - 1784161004

Catherine Goggin finds herself pregnant and alone at 16 in Ireland with no choice but to flee and trust a nun to find a home for her baby, what else can she do.
Cyril Avery is adopted by the Avery's, a well to do family. He is left adrift trying to find himself.

There was a lot of hype about this book and I can understand why. A wonderfully written story of a regular guy trying to find himself. This book has you crying, laughing and sends you on a whirlwind of emotions. Some books just leave you so sad to turn the last page and this is one of those books.

Thank You to NatGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating - Five out of Five Stars
Would I Read Again? - Yes
Would I Recommend? - Yes
Would I read other books by the same author? - Yes

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What a cracking read. John Boyce has written an absolute barnstormer of a tale set against the backdrop of an intolerant Ireland during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Heartwarming, sad and witty in turn, the book recounts the eventful life of Cyril Avery, conceived out of wedlock and taken by a hunchbacked nun to be brought up in material comfort in Dublin.
Charles, his adoptive father, holds a prominent position at The Bank of Ireland and is in trouble for a 'series of misadventures concerning (but not limited to) gambling, women, fraud, tax evasion and an assault on a journalist from the Dublin Evening Mail'. Maude, Charles's wife, 'rarely emerges from her study except to prowl around the house in a haze of cigarette smoke, looking for boxes of matches' so Cyril spends most of his early life alone in his suite of rooms at the top of his home.
When the quiet 7 year old Cyril meets Julian, the worldly, attractive, vivacious son of his father's solicitor, his world is turned upside done and his life is changed for ever.
The tale is chockablock full of rich, fascinating characters and is superbly written. The plot is delightful - intricate, weaving back on itself to pick up people and places and bringing them together. It also has a serious tale to tell of how many people suffered under the regime in Ireland during the 20th century.
A wonderful book which I cannot recommend enough. Probably my favourite read this year.
Many thanks to the publishers for a free copy of this wonderful book in return for an honest review.

What a wonderful book!This is a pretty long novel,but it is the most wonderful story of Cyril Avery growing up in Ireland and spanning his life.I really enjoyed how the book was divided into 7 year sections.Very funny and also touching.I was thoroughly invested in Cyril's character and those close to him.A very well deserved 5* read!

An absolute triumph !! I didn't want to put this book down and I was sad when it ended, it took me a couple of days to get over this book it mad me feel so emotional. This is one of my absolute favourite reads of the past couple of years and would make an amazing movie!! Prepare to laugh, cry, recoil and gasp when you join Cyril Avery and to a lesser extent his birth mother on his colourful journey.

1940's Ireland was ruled by priests, where unmarried mothers were banished by the church, ostracised by their communities and disowned by their families. Cyril Avery "not a real Avery"; a gay man born into conservative Ireland adopted by a curious and eccentric family, he felt lost and struggled to find his identity and his place within it. From a sleepy village in Ireland to Dublin, Amsterdam, New York and back again, he finds love, loss and acceptance and finally belonging. Try this book, you wont be disappointed.

This tells the story of Catherine who is forced to flee her small home town, amid getting pregnant out of marriage. Also Catherine is only sixteen. This takes place in Ireland where this was forbidden and frowned upon severely. We also meet Cyril Avery and his journey to finally being able to be who he really is. Where follow him as he gets adopted by a couple who treat him well but don't show any love or affection. We then follow as he becomes a grown man and the struggles he faces due to life and circumstance.

I found this book poignant, truly touching and heartrending. I got so invested with Cyril and Catherine. This truly is about finding your place in the world. I would highly recommend this book as it truly takes you on an emotional and at times funny journey.. There is a bleakness to the story but ye within that there is lightness and hope still found.

From the first sentence I was entranced. ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne starts with such an opening sentence, full of conflict, hypocrisy, resentment and hope, it made me want to gobble up the pages and not put the book down. I wasn’t disappointed.
‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ is the life story of one man, Cyril Avery, but also of a country and its attitudes to sexuality. The story starts in Goleen, Ireland, in 1945; a country riven by loyalty to, and hatred of, the British, at the same time in thrall to its Catholic priests whose rules were hypocritical, illogical and cruel. Cyril narrates his story, starting with how his 16-year old mother was denounced in church by the family priest for being single and pregnant. She was thrown out of church and village by the priest and disowned by her family. On the train to Dublin she meets a teenager, Sean, also heading for the big city. Wanting to help someone so obviously alone, Sean offers to let Catherine stay at his digs until she finds lodging and a job. These first friends she make are some of the most important in her life, and re-appear at important times also in Cyril’s life. Catherine gives birth and, as she carefully arranged, her baby is taken by a nun and placed with a waiting adoptive family. We the readers therefore know the identity and story of Cyril’s birth mother from page one; he doesn’t. As he grows from quiet boy to quiet teenager, falling in love at the age of seven with Julian, Cyril begins to lead a life of lies and shame forced on him by Ireland’s attitude to homosexuality and his inability to be true to himself. Cyril negotiates the first 30 years of his life, trapped between lying in order to stay safe or being truthful and getting arrested. Then he finds himself at the marriage altar. What happens next changes his life in so many ways, ways in which don’t become fully apparent until the last third of the novel.
This could be a depressing novel. It isn’t. It is charming and funny, but can turn on a sixpence and make you gasp with anger, despair or sadness. The characterisation is masterful. I particularly enjoyed Cyril’s adoptive mother Maude Avery, a chain-smoking novelist who detests the growing popularity of her books; his adoptive father Charles Avery who starts off being an awful snob with a talent for unintentional insults; and Mrs Goggin, who runs the tearoom at the Irish parliament with a rod of iron.
I loved this book. Honest, sad, laugh-out-loud funny, touching, with paragraphs I just had to read out aloud to my husband. It is about being true to yourself, the need for honesty in relationships, and the power of love. My favourite book of the year so far.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

Not having read any of John Boynes books before, I didn’t know what to expect. What a delight! The book spans the decades of Cyril’s life from in the womb to almost the end. His story starts as a young homosexual man and how he experiences discrimination, love, hate, hypocrisy, death, sadness, crazy happiness, and every other emotion. It had it all and I loved the book. Not a dull moment. Definitely recommend it.

I'm not sure where to start with this review to do this wonderful book justice. I loved it, right from the start, even before Cyril Avery officially appears (although he is the narrator in the story). It was a delight to read. There is a wonderful kind of rhythm to the writing. John Boyne's characters are so vivid and real. I could see them. I could hear them speak. I felt as if I knew them.

It's 1945, West Cork, Ireland. The book opens with a young girl, 16 year old Catherine Goggin, being denounced by the priest in front of the congregation at Sunday mass and cast out by Father Monroe and her family. Her crime? Being pregnant, unmarried and refusing to name the father. She's told to go and never return and so leaves for Dublin where she manages to get a place to stay and a job and later gives birth to a baby boy.

Cyril is adopted by a rather eccentric couple who had no children of their own. They are not bad people but Cyril grows up, often being left to fend for himself and there isn't much affection shown to him. Charles Avery would always make it clear that Cyril was adopted and not a real Avery.

He realises he is not like other boys. He has no interest in girls and even at the age of 7 he becomes secretly obsessed by his friend Julian who had no idea of Cyril's infatuation.

I felt lots of different emotions – anger at the hypocrisy and small mindedness of the church and state, and sad at Cyril's plight – he had quite an unconventional upbringing and he seemed lonely and in need of a friend. He just wanted to live his life but of course at the time it was a criminal offence to be homosexual. It's horrific the way homosexuals were treated. But the story is also very funny and witty and a joy to read.

The book is divided into three parts and an epilogue: I Shame, II Exile and III Peace. It spans 70 years, moving from Dublin to Amsterdam where Cyril meets his future partner then later to New York where he has to face a terrible and unexpected tragedy. However during these 70 years Cyril and Catherine's paths cross several times without either of them realising. It also took 70 years for Cyril to realise he is finally happy.

This has to be one of my favourite reads of the past year. It's also a book I would be happy to read again and there aren't too many of those.

Having dipped into this and read some reviews, decided it’s not for me.

The Heart's Invisible Furies tells the story of Cyril Avery ( not a real Avery though) and his journey from a slightly neglected adopted child to an old man who finally feels accepted and loved for who he is.

The title of the book worried me - it sounds so melodramatic and we'll, a bit depressing, and a brief scan of the topic instantly made me think of A Little Life - a book which the mere memory of can reduce me to tears nearly 18 months after I finished it. But I was brave a leapt in.....and oh I cannot count the reasons why I'm so glad I did. Did it make me cry? Did my heart break at the turn of a page? Many, many times. But equally I laughed out loud as many times. The author captures perfectly the charm of the Irish but also their darker side. I can't count the times growing up that casual racism and homophobia slipped from my Irish relations, but always in such a blithe way that it hardly registered. I can honestly remember an aunt telling a gay friend "ah now but you haven't met the right girl so" and proceeding in trying to convince him of the error of his ways. And he loved her to bits. This book captures that so well I felt like I'd lived it. I didn't just love this book - I adored it. It's no stretch to say it will be a my favourite book this year, and for a few years since too. An thought provoking, heart wrench of a novel that somehow is so so funny too....Five stars with a distinction from me.

The fact I have had this on my 'to-read' pile for almost a year in one way or another proves my aversion to door-stoppers like this; yet the end result is still a very pleasurable one at the hands of Boyne. It's once more a very different book from this eclectic talent – for the first time I am aware of, he has a made a very homosexy book. That's not to say it's strictly for gay men, and nor can you really reduce this to being 'about' Ireland, for it is a very personal look at one man in a saga-like setting, and all the swings and roundabouts he faces make for a thoroughly entertaining read. Only now and again did it ever feel like going off the rails, and being too long – this is one huge chunk of book that is hugely worth the effort. It has heart – it's about institutional betrayal of family, and bite – for it has a lot to say that Irish patriots would grumble into their Guinness over, but it's a very memorable entertainment.

There are very few books that I do not finish but unfortunately this is one of them No matter how hard I tried I just could not get into the story - therefore not one for me.

Oh what a gem. A wonderful heart wrenching hilarious saga. I actually shed a few tears which I hardly ever do reading and then laughter out loud within a chapter or two. The highs were so high and the lows so very low.
The characters were so finely drawn younend up feeling related to them. The years rolled along and I could have carried on reading another twenty chapters if there had been more.
Well done John Boyne you absolutely nailed it!

3.5 stars for me.

In many ways, this has a captivating narrative and excellent character development. It is the life story of Cyril Avery from (nearly) his conception to (nearly) his death. This is set against the backdrop of a very Catholic Ireland, while also carrying us through liberal Amsterdam, New York during the AIDS outbreak, and then back to a more modern Ireland going through changes towards a more accepting society.

What I loved most about this book is the way the author has built the characters, stroke by stroke, painting very believable people who nearly come out of the pages of this book - human, flawed, real.

The only minus was the fact the book is a bit too long and a few times the story ebbs and flows. At times, it was hard going, it didn’t keep me enthralled and I wasn’t looking forward to picking it up again. This happened particularly during Cyril’s 20s, but then it picked up with a vengeance during the Amsterdam and New York phases.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an impartial and honest review.

This was an important and wonderful book. With a cast of wonderful characters, this story spans the decades from the 1940s to the current time. Cyril is gay in Catholic Ireland. Bigotry prevails towards promiscuity, sex and pregnancy outside of marriage and being gay is illegal. The story follows Cyril through his life in 7 year intervals; he travels from Amsterdam and New York and back to Dublin. He acquires friends and loved ones along the way. There is a lot of comedy in the book through the interactions between people.

This is a book about a gay man’s life, but for me it was also about a man who was adopted. I am adopted myself, and my biological mother, Irish. She came to London to give birth to me and I was adopted into a very happy situation. But this story line, where Cyril and Catherine flitted in and out of each other’s lives, played with my heart a little...maybe I’ve interacted with my biological mother and never known it..this story line teased us almost all the way through the story. Would they realise who they were to each other? So, I found the tying up of this story line quite romantic and/or fanciful.
This book needs to be read!

Fantastic story spanning the lifetime of a very unfortunate man in ireland. From the tragic telling if his birth mum right up to his death. The many characters he brushed against through the ages and the implications only known many years later. Funny, sad and tragic in equal measures. A must read

First of all i should thank Netgalley for giving me a copy of this book. This is my second Boyne novel and again he has captured the time and the setting perfectly. The storyline starts with a pregnant teenager being evicted from her village by a priest on an altar in rural Ireland at the end of the first world war. It spans generations and covers the lives of people being ostracised and discriminated against. The characterisation is simply perfect and realistic and his storytelling brilliant. I can thoroughly recommend this book



It made me laugh and it made me cry, it took me on a journey of huge proportions I cannot wait to try more by this author

I have also posted this to Amazon awaiting publication

Free copy from NetGalley for an honest review

I have not read John Boyne before, so requested this book on description alone, and it did not disappoint.

A true generations-spanning Saga, told in first person pretty much throughout, what made it relatable even if the world it describes is entirely alien to me.

I was gripped from the start, and whenever I thought I could see where the next twist was to go, I was surprised every time.

Loved the writing, full of feeling, and the characters - likeable or not, all came to live wonderfully.
I also really liked the fact that full story was told - nothing to imagine at the end, all questions answered.

Thoroughly recommend to anyone not scared of a large volume!