The Blind Side of the Heart

The opening of Julia Frank's novel is among the most powerful in recent years, a narrative so assured that the reader is gripped...This is a great, big silence-breaker of a novel, a laser beam into the German darkness from a writer who, one feels, has a great deal more to say -- Norman Lebrecht * Evening Standard *
Franck's command of the language of misery and loss is awesome, but so is her gift for describing the warmth of burgeoning life when things are going right -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times *
One of the most haunting works I have ever read about 20th century Germany...The book's moral perspective is faultless, as is Franck's sensitivity to character, sexuality and the struggle to be a free woman in a fascist society...The Blind Side of the Heart is a masterpiece -- Julia Pascal * The Independent *
It is not surprising that this book won the German Book Prize... It is a rich moving and complex novel -- Allan Massie * The Scotsman *
Elegant novel ... Franck's great strength is her ability to place her characters in unenviable situations yet retain the reader's sympathy -- Gordon Darroch * Herald *
There is a relentless sense of purpose about the complex, ever-shifting narrative that continually tests the reader -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *
Heart-rending -- A. S. Byatt * Guardian *
It is an admirable book and in its best passages is inspired and haunting -- Jane Yager * Times Literary Supplement *
Generations of women survive, most movingly, in the wreckage left by total war -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *
Beautifully constructed... Franck has a remarkable ability to capture the nuances of human behaviour,and her subtle depiction of Helene's growing coldness, or "blindness", and the wider blindness of a society heading for disaster, is utterly compelling * Independent on Sunday *