They Are Trying to Break Your Heart
Author(s): David Savill
For fans of William Boyd, a literary thriller that ranges across decades and continents, weaving together the 2004 tsunami with the civil war in Bosnia and the personal with the political.
In 1994, Marko Novak's world is torn apart by the death of his best friend, Kemal, a young soldier in the darkest days of the Bosnian war. After the funeral, Marko flees to England, hoping to put his broken homeland, and the part he played in the loss of his friend, behind him.
In 2004, human rights researcher Anya Teal is following a tenuous lead in the hunt for a Bosnian man with blood on his hands. She is also clinging to the fragile hope that she can rebuild a relationship with her first love, William Howell. When Anya invites Will to join her on a Christmas holiday in the Thai beach resort of Khao Lak, she hopes the holiday will offer them the chance to unpick the mistakes of their past. But Khao Lak may also be home to the man Anya is looking for--a man with a much darker history.
What nobody knows is that a disaster as destructive as a war is approaching, detonated in the seabed of the Indian Ocean, one that will connect the fates of Marko, William, and Anya, across the years and continents. In its wake, everything Marko thought he knew will be overturned.
Review(s):
"[A] searing debut novel . . . [Savill] explore[s] moral complexities in lean and evocative prose." - The Los Angeles Times
"Tense and powerful . . . Faultless . . . Savill sidesteps the easy answers or received wisdoms about the labyrinthine, internecine war . . . They are Trying to Break Your Heart triumphs" - Times Literary Supplement (UK)
"In lean, piercing prose, Savill brings the narrative to a surprising climax and paints a moving portrait of grief." - People Magazine
"Written with deft sincerity and thoughtful brutality" - The Chicago Review of Books
"The book is most memorable for its depiction of war-torn Bosnia and its message that the love and friendship between Marko, Kemal, Vesna and their friends and families, can transcend the senselessness of civil war. In his author's note, Savill says that the novel grew from a desire to capture the 'humanity, solidarity and kindness' of his Bosnian friends, and in this he certainly succeeds." - New York Journal of Books
"Savill's immersive debut brings together the Bosnian War of the 1990s and the 2004 Thai tsunami in an enthralling story about destruction and justice." - Publishers Weekly
"Savill's first novel shows his deep compassion for and understanding of two earth-shattering events. Fans of British author William Boyd, take note." - Kirkus Reviews
"Savill mixes the personal with the political in an exploration of complex interrelationships of guilt and innocence and how people survive under extreme circumstances. A vivid, memorable depiction of the intersection of individual lives with major events." - Library Journal
ISBN: 9781632865465