Random Acts Of Heroic Love

Jul 16, 2025 4:12 AM

Author:Danny Scheinmann

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A BESTSELLING RICHARD AND JUDY BOOKCLUB PICK

SHORTLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHOR'S CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD

'A lush, romantic novel' Daily Mail

1992: Leo Deakin wakes up in a hospital somewhere in South America, his girlfriend Eleni is dead and Leo doesn't know where he is or how Eleni died. He blames himself for the tragedy and is sucked into a spiral of despair. But Leo is about to discover something which will change his life forever.

1917: Moritz Daniecki is a fugitive from a Siberian POW camp. Seven thousand kilometres over the Russian Steppes separate him from his village and his sweetheart, whose memory has kept him alive through carnage and captivity. The Great War may be over, but Moritz now faces a perilous journey across a continent riven by civil war. When Moritz finally limps back into his village to claim the hand of the woman he left behind, will she still be waiting?

'Special' Sunday Express

'Tender' Observer

'Mesmerising' Publishing News

Reviews

Tender and insightful

—— Observer

Two strikingly different tales of love and grief are gradually revealed to have more in common than just the tenactiy of both men to cling desperately to the memory of love... a lush, romantic novel

—— Daily Mail

Really is as special as its press suggests... beautifully told... an amazingly assured debut

—— Sunday Express

This riveting novel is an unforgettable tale of two men sustained by love in times of conflict

—— The Lady

A tour de force... mesmerizing

—— Publishing News

This vivid and illuminating book opens many pathways for the reader of contemporary poetry, bringing to bear not only current thinking but the whole world of the past, particularly the past of Greek experience

—— Gillian Beer

The ideal guide for the apprehensive reader of contemporary poetry... Her beguilingly informal style entertains and informs along the way. It is one of the book's great strengths that she is never lofty, nor condescending, nor a show off

—— Irish Times

A pleasingly unpredictable mix of traditional and radical... It's clever, thought-provoking

—— Independent

Pynchon can be totally maddening, but he has a great sense of mischief

—— Douglas Kennedy , The Times

Clever and inventive in a mad professor kind of way...Intermittently warmed by paragraph-long sunbeams of iridescent prose-poetry

—— Economist

A fast elasticism running from slangy to stately, a voice full of echoes, littered with jokes and songs, and often reaching into a curious tenderness, a tone of laid back elegy.... this amazing writer continues to be amazing, and in much the same way he always was

—— London Review of Books

‘[Toni Morrison’s] irreverence was godly’

—— Guardian

A beautiful book and it's beautifully written

—— Kit de Waal , Good Housekeeping UK

My favourite book of all time

—— Sareeta Domingo , Good Housekeeping

Morrison's stunning trilogy is an evocation of black life over the past four centuries. It defies summary. Completed almost 25 years ago, these novels top anything produced by any American writer including Hemingway, Updike and DeLillo

—— Trevor Phillips , Sunday Times

[A] beautiful, haunting novel

—— Stig Abell , Sunday Times

More than one of Morrison's books could be classed as masterpieces, but this one is famous for a reason: everyone should read it

—— Bernice McFadden, author of SUGAR , Guardian

A magnificent achievement...an American masterpiece

—— A.S. Byatt , Guardian

A triumph

—— Margaret Atwood , New York Times Book Review

She melds horror and beauty in a story that will disturb the mind forever

—— Sunday Times

Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature

—— New York Review of Books

A work of genuine force. . .Beautifully written

—— Washington Post

There is something great in Beloved: a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you

—— The New Yorker

Superb. . .A profound and shattering story that carries the weight of history. . .Exquisitely told

—— Cosmopolitan

This is a wonderful novel about slavery, freedom, parental loss and revenants

—— The Week, Thomas Keneally

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