What an original book - hard to categorise - but I will be recommending it to everyone I know. In some ways the plot of this tale is incidental. The characters are well-drawn, their relationship ups and downs are believable and the descriptions as seen through the eyes of Nova, blind from birth, are astonishing. Obviously I don't know how accurate they are but they are so interesting and make complete sense to me. Those of us with reasonable eyesight take so much for granted. The descriptions and problems cited in this tale will definitely make me think twice when I look around me.
Kate is another interesting character in this tale, leading a busy life but with problems of her own.
When Kate and Nova meet at the hospital their lives become intertwined and each brings life experience to help the other move on.
Can't wait for another offering from Joe Heap.
Very many thanks to Netgalley/Joe Heap/Harper Collins for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is an accomplished debut that hooked me from the opening pages. Nova is born blind, but receives a life changing operation that allows her the chance to gain her sight. Whilst in hospital, she meets Kate, a married architect who is at a bit of a crossroads (I don't want to give too much away!) Their relationship develops as both characters learn to see in very different ways; Nova literally, and for Kate... well she learns to see what her marriage is really like. I thought the pace of the book was well pitched; it was a slow burn rather than a mad dash, and that suited the story. Parts of the story were pretty harrowing, again I don't want to give spoilers, but ultimately the massage was a positive one.

The book deals with with Nova who was born blind and at 32 she has an operation and can see. It charts the problems and trials that she encounters. This part of the book is excellent and thought provoking, making you think of things that previously have just been taken for granted. Sadly the storyline of Nova and Kate really wasn’t for me, it seemed contrived and not believable.

I loved this book, but it was sometimes difficult to read.

How Heap could imagine and describe the terror and confusion of seeing, after being blind from birth is astonishing. It was so descriptive with elements I would never have considered.

But the story has an air of impending menace and I sometimes found this difficult to read, anticipating the violence to come. The atmosphere created was tense.

A brilliant book.

Emotional. Raw. Upsetting. And beautifully written. I'm glad I kept reading as I enjoyed it very much and will be looking out for more by this writer.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I was intrigued by the description of this book and I was certainly not disappointed in the reading of it. The story was unusual and the vivid picture (no pun intended) of Nova and her struggles with her new sight gripped me throughout. I really empathised with her and willed her to succeed.
Nova’s often amusing ‘Rules of Seeing ‘ were intertwined with the more sinister story of Kate and her abusive marriage. This was a harder but no less compelling read, though I did find Kate frustrating at times. It certainly made the story less predictable.
I’ll happily recommend this book to my book club and look forward to reading the author’s future books.

This was a lovely book full of depth and emotions. Nova is a very mixed up young lady who was born blind, had the opportunity to restore vision and had to learn to see. The descriptions of going from dark to light are amazing and introduced me to how this change was accomplished. The story of Kate and her husband , to me, added nothing to what I perceived as the main story about Nova.
A thought provoking well written book with characters that seem real.

This starts so well but loses its way.
The characters are supposed to be intelligent but just appear silly.
Not for me.

What a beautiful book , an absolutely terrific read, fascinating insight in what it must be like to be blind, all the things we never knew. the story revolves around 3 main chatacters and has manay twists and turns, there were the rules of seeing throughout the book which I felt were a little too much at times, however, I wuld thoroughly recommend this book to everyone.

I found this book a wonderful read that was both fascinating and intriguing. It’s an underlying love story with the complication of murderous intent thrown in with some twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. I particularly enjoyed the actual rules of seeing numbered throughout the story which were very well written and extremely well thought out. I was educated as well as entertained with Nova’s journey of blindness to sight and very grateful for the authors extensive research which must have been done. I particularly enjoyed the way Nova and Kate met having bumped into each other initially before getting better acquainted.

If you like a story that has great characters who make you laugh, cry and cringe then you could do much worse than read this one. Highly recommended.

A beautifully written and extremely emotional story about love and friendship. The characters are incredibly well developed and will stay with me for some time. Wonderful stuff!

A very interesting different book as it gave insight into Nova being born blind and then being able to see. This would normally be very hard to understand, but Nova's story was told exceptionally well.
Not as keen on Kate's story escaping from an abusive marriage, but she did fall in love with Nova.
An excellent first novel.

I love a book that makes me think, especially if it makes me think about something I’ve never thought about before. This book did just that in that I’d never considered how someone who had never seen our world would cope if they could have an operation that helps them to see. The writing is exquisite and at times brutal. The storyline is realistic and although this isn’t a ‘page turner, can’t put it down’ type of book I still enjoyed it immensely.

Thought provoking. This story did indeed make me think about how the world must look to someone who has been blind from birth. Simple things like just walking being able to see ahead, reading facial expressions, colours, navigating public spaces when you can't make sense of signs. Just learning spatial awareness, distances and more. I understood why Nina would retreat back into her safe sightless world; she knew it there. A most insightful story with tension and love interest added in. I would recommend this book to my friends.

The Rules of Seeing is about the actual ‘art’ of seeing, but even more so it is about our interpretations of what we see.

Obviously our brains take the external stimuli perceived by our senses, but Joe Heap asks the questions about how our brains then translate or interpret the information, and how we shape it into stories in order to fit it into our view of life. When our brains cannot form those stories in a way we can live with then problems ensue. Problems of the kind that both Nova and Kate face here.

Nova is no longer able to understand the world as she has lived in it all her life, and is having to learn it all anew, and the blow to Kate’s head has also blown her perceptions out of perspective. Whilst both women can technically ‘see’, they are unable to comprehend what it is that they are seeing and can therefore no longer navigate their previous lives.

This story also asks the question about whether we are better with the devil we know, or whether the leap into the unknown is worth the inherent risks. The dark and light are woven together beautifully, making the story in turns sad, joyous, tense and terrifying.

Whilst mostly a mixture of romance and self-discovery, there is an element of suspense and thriller to the plot, that revolves around some very distressing domestic abuse (definitely a trigger warning here). This storyline is handled sensitively and is utterly chilling.

Between the lurking danger and the fascination of Nova’s gradual development of skills, plus one of the loveliest romantic connections I’ve read (love the depiction of day-to-day relationship joy as well as the big romantic gestures) this novel was completely unputdownable and one of my favourites this year.



‘Most people think of blindness as darkness.’
‘I know. But you can see black and white, and red in good light…’
‘No, that’s not what I mean.’ Her hands form shapes in front of her, which Alex guesses are supposed to convey hesitation, or thought. ‘People think of blindness as binary, as an on-or-off switch. Either you can see or you’re blind, right?’
‘I… guess so.’
‘But it’s a spectrum. Even if you can see, you can only see a tiny portion of all the light that’s really there. Did you know that? I’ve always found that comforting, in a stupid way. It’s cool.’
Alex says nothing. He’s looking at his sister, in her biker jacket and I Want to Believe T-shirt, wondering how she can still infuriate him this much, after all these years.

– Joe Heap, The Rules of Seeing

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

I wanted to love this book but thought it was just ok. I felt like it didn't know what it was trying to be. Was it a thriller, was it a drama? I read it and still don't know. Didn't live up to the hype.

This was quite honestly the most beautiful book I've read in a long time. It grabbed me from the start and was literally unputdownable. Highly recommended - one of the best books of 2018.

Thanks to Net Galley and Harper Collins UK for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
There is rather a lot going on in this book. I felt Nova’s story should have been the centre of the book, I did enjoy seeing the world through her eyes that could now see, thought provoking. Eve’s story of her troubled marriage was darker. The two woman become friends and more as they support each other. Rather a strange book but I liked Nova a lot, could se that having been given the gift of her sight that it had not solved her problems just made her problems and how she tackled them different.

Beautiful book about friendship and love.

It treats being blind with a heart warming open approach that is a both touching and enlightening.

Great to read a main stream story with a lesbian romance at the centre.

Nova and Kate were likable characters but the story overall did have a feeling of not quite knowing what it wanted to be. As far as I am aware the book dealt with the issues well - though I am not blind so I am not an expert voice on that - and I definitely liked the first half of the book more. I felt it just lost it's way a little in the second half and dragged more than it should have.