[This is a review I wrote in 2008]

** 'And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony.' (Shakespeare). 2 beautiful love stories.**

Five stars are not enough! 'Random Acts of Heroic Love', is an incredible debut novel from Danny Scheinmann. A labour of love in itself; in his acknowledgements the author says it took six years and numerous drafts to get it right, but all that painstaking work has paid dividends. It's a wonderfully rich, insightful and wrenchingly emotional novel.

The story begins in 1992 with Leo, a young PhD student, waking up in an Ecuadorian clinic to find that his girlfriend Eleni is dead. Eleni. His soulmate. The other half of his whole. She's been killed in a bus crash they were in - the only victim of the crash. Leo's loss, and his attempt to go on living, picking up the pieces of his previous existence, without Eleni, is just one half of the book. Leo turns to Physics to try and find some answers and interspersed throughout the pages of the novel are facsimile pages from a journal Leo was keeping to help him get through Eleni's death... One of the quotes Leo finds is the one I used for the title of my review.

The other story, which picks up at chapter 3, is every bit as heart-wrenching. It is the story of another young man from Galicia, Moritz Daniecki, caught up in the war on the Russian Front as a soldier from 1914 through to 1917. In 1914 before the outbreak of war, young Moritz meets the love of his life, Lotte, and they declare their love for each other before Moritz goes to war. During the war he suffers unbearable conditions before finally escaping from a prisoner of war camp in Sibera. Moritz tells the story of how he is driven across the Siberian wilderness by his everlasting love for Lotte. It is her memory and the letters that he writes to her that keeps him going on his journey... not knowing what he will find at the end.

The two stories are truly beautiful. Both young men are kept going through each and every day by their memories of love, and the connection between the two is revealed at the end (if you haven't already guessed). Superbly written. The harshness of a Siberian winter and First World War horrors are vividly brough to life by Scheinmann. The book takes you on a non-stop emotional roller coaster and only those with cast-iron feelings will remain unmoved! An exceptional book. ( )

An engrossing and heartening story about the power of love in a story that has many autobiographical elements. Two disparate threads are woven together - perhaps some loose ends should have been left as Scheinmann wraps everything up by the end of the novel. Nonetheless, a good read. ( )

Recommended to me by a respected authority I was intrigued by this book when flicking through and seeing the photos of the animals and the random diary entries at various points. Obviously a lot of care has gone into this book over six years to make the two narratives. If you have ever loved and lost then you will definitely find something to make you think and perhaps even help you a little. I did. I am not saying that this is one of those life changing novels, it certainly is not. It is however a very pleasant way to spend a couple of days light reading! Enjoy..... ( )

1992: Als bei einem Busunglück Leos Freundin stirbt bricht für ihn die Welt zusammen. Nichts mehr ergibt einen Sinn und er drifftet langsam aber sicher in eine Welt voller Dunkelheit und Schmerz ab.
1917: Als Moritz im ersten Weltkrieg eingezogen wird, ist er noch voller Hoffnungen schnell zu seiner Geliebten Lotte zurückkehren zu können. Dann wird er jedoch in russische Gefangenschaft genommen und in ein sibierisches Lager gebracht. Er schafft es zu fliehen und begibt dich auf den Weg, quer durch Russland, nach Hause. Nicht ahnend, dass seine Reise 5 Jahre dauern wird. Der Roman ist sowohl ein romatischer Liebesroman, als auch ein unsagbar trauriges Drama. Der Auter möchte mit seinem ersten Roman zeigen, dass man selbst in der dunkelsten Stundes des Lebens nicht aufgeben darf. Die Geschichte basiert auf den schmerzlichen Erfahrunges Danny Scheinmanns und der Lebensgeschichte seines Großvaters. Zu Anfang wird man als Leser ein wenig irritiert, da die Erzählperspektiven ohne Ankünigungen wechseln, aber wenn man einmal in der Geschichte drin ist möchte man das Buch am liebsten nicht mehr aus der Hand legen. ( )

I enjoyed this book, best novel I have read for a while.
This is two stories that in the end are connected.

First story is of Leo getting over the death of his girlfriend Eleni who died in a bus crash in South America.

Second story is of Moritz who survives the First World War and is searching for his first love Lotte.

This book is easy to read and is quite an interesting concept.

I dont want to give the story away but I did really enjoy reading it. ( )