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Vulnerable in Hearts tells an anecdotal history of the game of contract bridge and the story of Sandy’s relationship with his father.
“Lovely... original, unusual and surprisingly moving.”
Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post
“Balfour's double theme works beautifully and he remembers his last conversations with his dying father, 'as they had always been, coded, cautious, and full of silences... like the bidding in bridge'.”
Phil Baker in the Observer
“Instructive, entertaining (very) and at times quite poignant...”
Antonia Fraser in The Times
“A fresh, engrossing memoir and a compelling advertisement for the game.”
Alexander Waugh in The Telegraph
“Once again I approach a Sandy Balfour book in almost total ignorance of the subject matter and once again I am drawn in, beguiled, intrigued. This is a better book than his first, more confident, more fluent.”
Marcus Berkmann in The Daily Mail
“The book’s power lies in its pervasive restraint, and in this it is reminiscent of Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day...”
Colin Bower in The Sunday Times
“Balfour skilfully interweaves different aspects of bridge with his narrative of family history... Its combination of family memoir and bridge lore works well, and above all he has a light touch.”
John Clay in The Literary Review
“Vulnerable in Hearts is, on one level, a modestly autobiographical tome but there is no denying the grandness of the aspirations that lie behind it – the attempt to explain why it is that so many of us spend so many years playing this odd little game. No summary here can quite do justice that project but I think that anyone who reads the book will find their own experience questioned and enriched. “
Nick Smith in English Bridge
"Sandy Balfour's marvelous first book, Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8), described how he left South Africa and reinvented himself as British, using his passion for crosswords as a metaphor for a certain kind of Englishness. Here bridge provides some equally resonant metaphors."
Matthew J Reisz in The Independent
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