From the Heart

A quietly shattering coming-of-age story set in the late Fifties and early Sixties … Hill’s storytelling is vivid, yet spare. From the Heart is a captivating portrait of a woman caught in the wrong era. This slender novel could be devoured in an afternoon, but it has an unsettling quality that will stay with the reader long after it is finished – Violet Hudson * Daily Telegraph *
The novel is at times almost unbearably painful as Olive attempts to make sense of a world for which she has been poorly prepared… A short but stunning achievement – Vanessa Berridge * Daily Express *
From the Heart is a coming-of-age story that embeds different forms of recognition… It keeps you guessing to the end. Its heroine learns things, and so does the reader – the chief one being never to underrate Susan Hill – David Grylls * Sunday Times *
What Hill conveys beautifully is the agony of all that is left unsaid in relationships. It is, ultimately, a novel about love: about the dilemmas we face when we are not permitted to live in the way that we wish * Observer *
Susan Hill’s stylistic approach to writing is one of the stand-out features of this novel – fast-paced and punchy, with an attention to detail that powerfully reflects Olive’s inner turmoil … her naivete, combined with her struggle to find contentment, is both poignant and hugely endearing – Erin Bateman * Irish News *
From the Heart never descends into sentimentality. Olive is a satisfyingly complex protagonist drawn with unerring but minimal strokes… captivating – Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail *
Truly startling – Melissa Katsoulis * Times *
There is an understated elegance to this tale of heartbreak and thwarted potential. Olive Piper is an appealing heroine… But secrecy, claustrophobic convention and an unexpected betrayal undermine her hope and happiness – Eithne Farry * Mail on Sunday *
Hill explores with great economy an idea of the ubiquity of differentness… From the Heart shows Susan Hill working in a consciously spare, undecorated style: the novel moves quickly, its sentiments pithily expressed. Such sparseness is central to its impact – Matthew Dennison * Spectator *
From the Heart is the perfect antidote to online hysteria … Stoic, [Olive] deals with inner turmoil with a measured control which is reflected in Hill’s pared back writing. The descriptions of her intense feelings, when they come, are therefore all the more powerful – Kirsty McLuckie * The Scotsman *

Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won awards and prizes including the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Rhys and a Somerset Maugham, and have been shortlisted for the Booker. Her novels include Strange Meeting, I’m the King of the Castle, In the Springtime of the Year and The Mist in the Mirror. She has also published autobiographical works and collections of short stories as well as the Simon Serrailler series of crime novels. The play of her ghost story The Woman in Black is one of the longest running in the history of London’s West End. In 2020 she was awarded a damehood (DBE) for services to literature. She has two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.