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Title: Hearts and Minds

Author: Amanda Craig

Narrator: Sian Thomas

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-12-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Hidden by Londons wealth, energy and need for cheap labour, the citys immigrant population is powerless, despised and often illegal. So when a young womans body is discovered on Hampstead Heath one cold morning, she could be anyone...Rich or poor, outsider or insider, five strangers are connected in undreamed-of ways as greed, courage, murder and kindness link their lives. Polly Noble, a human rights lawyer and single mother, knows more than most how easily people fall into the abyss of Londons underworld.

Members Reviews:

Continues the Societal Gaze of A VICIOUS CIRCLE

HEARTS AND MINDS picks up about a decade after Amanda Craig's previous novel on the subject, A VICIOUS CIRCLE. Several characters (Mark Crawley and the divinely named Ivo Sponge) carry over, but you needn't have read the earlier book to enjoy this one. We see modern London in about 2007 -- near the end of the George W. Bush era -- and instead of the focus on literary professionals, here we have immigrants, lawyers, and others in the mix. It's a fascinating read, especially in these post-Brexit days.

Amanda Craig seems to have staked out some territory in Margaret Drabble or Penelope Lively land: there is much sociological commentary, and awareness on the part of the characters that they are in a changing time and place. I sort of like this, though others might not. The heroine is a middle-aged divorced woman with a career, children, big house, and dwindling ability to manage it all effectively; she is an immigration lawyer and considers herself very lucky to be employed in her field at all after taking several years off to be with her children. The other main characters -- the storylines alternate and occasionally merge -- include a saintly black Zimbabwean minicab driver, a young white South African teacher, a Ukranian teenager forced by vicious pimps to serve as an unpaid prostitute, and an American girl employed at a largely irrelevant literary magazine. They are all interesting, though their stories tend to dovetail a bit too neatly.

As with many novels intent upon showing the state of Society at a moment in time, HEARTS AND MINDS is a bit too talky, with characters always on the verge of being archetypes rather than individuals. Luckily, Amanda Craig is naturally funny, and her dialogue sparkles. She undercuts the seriousness brilliantly, enabling us to enjoy the story and characters for themselves rather than as illustrations of a historical period. And her observations about the immigrant problem and the social services network really resonate at the current moment, while the hostility toward Bush seems almost naive in light of recent events. How far we've come, how little we saw it coming -- these are powerful insights, and Craig helps us realize them. Highly recommended.

A great book that educates and entertains

I read this book almost a year ago but I still recommend it to people. It gave me a great insight into the way a place can be so different depending upon your personal situation.

I'm not particularly liberal, and yet it made me understand and appreciate the problems faced by UK immigrants in a new light.

The writing style was easy to read and the characters were engrossing and involving.