From its show-stopping opening scene, Keevil’s tightly plotted page turner is full of momentum and unforgettable characters. Moving, profound and ultimately joyful, it turns on an exceptionally clever twist and is as revealing

in its psychological acuity as it is in its portrait of organised crime.

All it takes to change a life is a single moment. A random stabbing on a London bus leaves Eira stripped of a future that should have been hers and propels her into a life skewed out of all recognition.

In Prague, the city where she and her husband got engaged, the city where now she flees to in her grief, a chance meeting leads to an intriguing proposition. There’s a small job for someone like her: someone without a criminal record or personal connections; someone willing to take a minor risk. All she needs to do is pick something up, and drive back. Just once. Only ever once.

Her mission takes her to a place where life is cheap and sordid deals are done. Risking her own life to save another, she must confront unspeakable evil and outrun those who would betray her.

Tyler Keevil's profile page

Tyler Keevil is the author of three novels, including The Drive (also published by Myriad) and No Good Brother (Borough Press), he has received numerous awards, most notably the Wales Book of the Year People’s Prize and the Writers’ Trust of Canada /McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. He is Director of the MA in Creative Writing at Cardiff University. He grew up in Vancouver and moved to Wales in his twenties, and now lives in Abergavenny, Wales.

‘I was blown away. Beautiful writing … stunning.’ – Miriam Toews

‘Keevil’s writing is unmissable … quite simply a brilliant writer.’ – Viv Groskop

‘Equally compelling and unsettling, this razor-sharp thriller reminds us that, for life to be truly lived, we must know death. In loss we confront our true nature, though we might not recognise the person we discover. In his customary electric prose, Keevil cranks up the tension. You won't be able to look away.’ – Katherine Stansfield

‘Your Still Beating Heart is a slow burn novel, which meticulously gathers pace to become an exhilarating thriller about the sudden twists and turns of fate and how our personal choices can create a domino effect, dramatically altering the course of our life, even ending it prematurely, or making us come alive to its renewed potential.’ – Nut Press

‘Keevil puts us right in the centre of the action like no book has ever done before. I honestly felt like the actions and questionable decisions of the characters were placed on my shoulders and I would have to face the consequences… a fast-paced high-speed chase, the tension building with each page, compelling you to read on. With masterful storytelling and beautifully complex characters and dynamics, it really goes it show, sometimes you must experience death to truly understand life.’ – Literary Lucie, Bookstagrammer

‘A phenomenal thriller… Every sentence was meticulously crafted and it left me in awe of the author and his ingenious storytelling… an extremely menacing and electrifying narrative… He perfectly builds the tension which leaves one feeling unsettled. I couldn't put it down. It was lingering in my mind for days.’ – The Biblio Sara, Bookstagrammer

‘Tightly structured prose, tension and a vaguely threatening feel which seems to lurk in the background set Keevil’s novel in motion and make it very difficult to turn away, even during its most uncomfortable moments. What really stands out... is Keevil’s distinctive writing style and his ability to lead readers to question the choices they would make if they found themselves confronted with a situation such as the one Eira unwittingly finds herself in. This is a snappy and pacey read which makes for an excellent page-turner and a poignant reminder of the frailty of human life.’ – Emma Schofield, Wales Art Review

‘There’s a transcendent quality to novels which wrest tenderness and beauty from brutality and ugliness, and this one has it in abundance. Your Still Beating Heart has the emotional heft of a character-driven literary novel despite being a palpitation-inducing page-turner, a rare combination. I found it moving, gripping and evocative of place – if you enjoyed Judith Heneghan’s Snegurochka (set in Kiev) or Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs To You (set in Sofia), there are shades of overlap, but this book’s heart beats to its own tune.’ – Isabel Costello, The Literary Sofas Books of the Year

‘This really grabbed me right from the start. I just couldn’t put it down. It’s unashamedly a pacy thriller. It's hard-hitting with a really strong political undercurrent… in places I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. It’s very, very strong.’ – The Review Show, BBC Radio Wales

‘A great, gripping story, ferociously well-written, with characters that live and breathe.’ – Stef Penney

‘Keevil writes with startling clarity. In Your Still Beating Heart, he offers his reader a tightly plotted page turner, and, in his enviably precise style, reminds us just how precarious these lives of ours are and just how much we should value them. An exciting, intriguing, moving read.’ – Rebecca F. John

‘This tense thriller is set in Eastern Europe but more particularly in the landscape of the human heart, exploring its darkness and depravity as well as its capacity for love. The excitement builds until it reaches a climax of almost mythic ferocity and power.’ – Richard Francis

‘Tyler Keevil has a phenomenal ability as a novelist to bring together a compelling cast of loners and eccentrics. While this is on the face of it a pacy thriller, Keevil has fashioned out of the genre a story about stories and storytelling which is both memorable and heart-rending.’ – Francesca Rhydderch