Waiting for Sunrise

William Boyd’s new novel, Waiting for Sunrise, is a love story and thriller. Set in Freud’s Vienna, the crucible of modernism, and moving to London in WW1, it explores themes of suspicion, betrayal and the way public events impinge on private lives. The central character, an English actor, meets a beautiful Viennese artist in the waiting room of an eminent psychiatrist, leading to a passionate affair. But back in London, he is plunged into the theatre of wartime intelligence – a world of sex, scandal and spies. ‘It is ages since I read a novel that offers such breathlessly readable narrative enjoyment, such page-by-page storytelling confidence’ (The Independent). William Boyd’s novels include Any Human Heart. Chaired by Virginia Nicholson, author of Millions Like Us.