Book giveaway: The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson

[UrsulaMumsnet]

During a ferocious storm, a red-haired stranger appears in the garden of a small farm cottage. Eliza and her parents take him in. But very soon, it's clear he has no intention of leaving.

Julie Myerson's new novel is a devastating depiction of profound loss, sexual longing, love and true evil,and has been called the finest novel to date from this most fearless and original of writers.

Vintage have asked us to find 50 Mumsnetters to read The Stopped Heart and tell us what they think about it on this discussion thread. Go to the giveaway page to find out more and apply for a free copy.

You don't have to win a free copy to take part in the discussion. Anyone who has read The Stopped Heart can post their feedback here, and all who post before 14th March will be entered into a prize draw to win a £100 Love2Shop voucher.

Gutted I missed potentially the free copy!! I will look to purchase!
Love a good read and sharing with other people
ATB
A

Yes, I paid 10 quid for my copy. More than worth it though

Amazing book! A real page turner, only took me three days to finish! I loved the story (although quite dark), and how it was written between two times. My only disappointment was that I felt it could have been longer, I was sad when it ended!

I've already recommended to friends and family and will be looking at other books by Julie Myerson!

Wow! I've just finished this book and think it's an amazing but harrowing work of fiction that kept me totally gripped. I wasn't quite sure half the time where it was going but it also was strangely, predictable in its horrific denouement. It's a novel about the worst possible thing that can happen to a parent, love, time, grief and place and is truly original, thought-provoking, intelligent fiction.
I've read a number of Julie Myerson's books before so knew that I would enjoy it but it would be a challenging, emotional read but this book is definitely her best yet. Highly recommended due to it's exquisite and vivid writing but as previous reviewers have commented, it's heart-wrenching and difficult to read in places. Ultimately it's about the power of the bonds of human love that transcend time and space so stay uplifted by that thought!

I really enjoyed reading 'The Stopped Heart'. I like the writing style and the way emotions were described. I found The main characters Mary and Eliza to be believable and likeable. Mary's feeling of grief was portrayed well and I felt her slowly thawing out towards the end. However, the twin story lines that run through the book I feel were not properly joined up. (SPOILER ALERT) I felt that at the end of the story Mary somehow felt some resolution to her grief that was connected to little girl at the table. But why did that horrific act that had happened to the family living in the house 150 years ago help Mary?

I think this book would make a great book group read as there are a lot of points of discussion. I feel that there are maybe bits that I have missed and I would really enjoy discussing it in the group format. I will be suggesting it to my book group.

I haven't read the thread as I'm only about half way through and want to avoid spoilers. I'm finding the book compelling, but I'm not sure it's enjoyable. I'm living with a sense of being aware bad things are going to happen and not wanting to know, but equally needing to so having to keep going.

The psychic/ghost stuff leaves me cold, and I'm more interested in the characters in the older of the two interwoven stories. I'm not sure reading books where tragic things happen to kids is the best idea at this point in my life, but like I say I now need to know.

I forgot to add to my review that I would not recommend this book to anybody whose daughter has just started walking home on their own from school. It has turned me into a very nervous parent!

I was fortunate to win this book in the giveaway...
I am only just over half way through but I am gripped. It took me a bit of concentration to start reading as the story changes from past to present without chapters but that makes it different.

I haven't read the earlier reviews in case they spoil anything for me and I don't want to spoil anything for anyone else.

I can't wait to find out what happens....

Belo, I agree - still trying to recover from the sick, worried feeling around my own children.

Incidently too, someone posted upthread that they thought the book was about reincarnation. My personal take on it was that Eliza and Mary were somehow connected through their personal suffering and the geography of living in the same house at different points in time. I think there aren't any solid ends about what's happened and even Mary says as much in the book (I think :)

I'm somewhat perplexed by all the rave reviews above, saying how much readers enjoyed this book.... I found it bleak, depressing and deeply uncomfortable to read. It didn't find it unputdownable so much as unpickupable for several days when I just couldn't take any more of its grimness.
However, the fact that it affected me so badly proves that the author is adept at communicating sorrow and loss (I had to go and hug my own children several times while reading) and she successfully conjured a sense of foreboding and menace that grew through the book, not least by her evocative descriptions of the landscape around the house and the tense stillness and heat.
It was a book of two halves for me - during the first half (with the horrific deeds as yet only imagined) I felt irritated by the characters constantly asking each other "What are you thinking?" and by both the female lead characters (past and present) being so accommodating to men who were menacing, invasive and clearly going to do them harm. (Mary seemed oblivious to Eddie's wrongness but Eliza knew James was bad news and fell for him anyway - it was maddening.) I gave up for a while at the murder in the apple store, partly repelled by its nastiness and partly from thinking that if that had happened only halfway through the plot, much worse was surely to follow. So I read the second half tentatively (doing the literary equivalent of peeking through my hands in dread), bracing myself for the horrors I knew were coming. Right up until the last few pages I hoped for some softening or act of justice or resolution to counterbalance the evil and malevolence. But there wasn't any. Just sadness upon sadness.
In short, if you enjoy gory, visceral, horror movies, you like feeling tense and anxious or you're comfortable with other people's agony, you might like this book but I can't help thinking that, as real life has all too many depravities anyway, why expose yourself to even more?

Thanks for the copy. I initially found the book hard to get in to as it jumps quite quickly between the 2 time frames. However, once I got into it I was hooked. I haven't finished yet so am trying not to look at the other reviews, but am loving the similarities with some of the 2 sets of characters - those 150 years ago and those now. Am looking forward to finishing it and seeing if my theories pan out.

I was delighted to receive a free copy - thanks Mumsnet!
Unfortunately I too struggled with this one - at times I really resented picking it up. From the outset I found it dark and oppressive, a thick read. Mary's grief was overwhelming, and there was little light relief elsewhere in the story. Especially at the beginning I found the references to ghosts and spirits in Mary's sections rather clumsy. Having read the reviews above, I'm thinking maybe it's more me than the book - so am planning to give it another go, and will report back when I'm further through.

I found this book really hard to get into, I'm up to page 245, but really don't like all the psychic stuff or the horrific events, but I need to find out how it finishes!

I've received my copy and it's great so far!

Thank you everyone for your feedback on this somewhat unsettling but addictive book..

The winner of the £100 Love2Shop voucher is FoxinaBox. Congratulations!

Thanks for my copy of the book Mumsnet. Sorry for the late review but I found this book extremely hard to get into due to it constantly flicking between Mary/Graham and Eliza/James. I kept putting it down and picking it back up and not getting very far. I didn't understand the ending of the book whatsoever in fact it left me with loads of questions. I found James and the brutal killings and child molestation difficult to stomach due to how young the children were, all in all I found this book disturbing.

I got this as a giveaway from mumnet! thank you!

I have read a couple of her books and have really enjoyed them. I was enjoying this book but then a few things started to annoy me. Leaving your children to go and get the car was not believable at all, when you could have easily walked them to the car no matter how stroppy they were. I thought that might have been part of the story, that maybe she was lying about what happened. I thought the two stories were very atmospheric but the ending let it down for me. A bit of a let down. Thank you mumsnet, it's always good to get a new read!