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A masterpiece of emotional artistry, as spectacularly tender as it is disquieting, this book will stay with you long after you finish it.
Heather and Harriet, six and nine years old respectively, are two little girls who have a special bond. As sisters, the love they share is pure and inviolable – for each other, for their mother, and for the power and joy of the music they see and feel everywhere – a benign but potent defense buffering them against the terrible episodes of domestic violence they endure daily.
“I noticed her hands were trembling. That her wedding ring caught the light, then didn’t, catching the light, then didn’t, an awful flashing song that said, Help me, help me, help me. But I didn’t know how.”
This story will break your heart as profoundly as it will melt it – as the redemptive power of love (all forms of love, and nothing else) is pitted repeatedly against some of life’s greatest evils (some, arguably, well-intentioned, but most, deliberate and traumatic).
Budding pianists from a very young age, with innate abilities rooted in their ancestry, the girls practice covertly, learning to harness the secrets of their craft, creating a deeply symbolic four-handed song, (played simultaneously in breathtaking harmony) – their poignant effort to both diffuse and distract the violence, providing a sort-of hopeful beacon for their helplessly suffering mother.
“I knew nothing bad could happen to the three of us while it played. That the safe hands of such beauty would not let any harm come to us. “
As the plot unwinds with terrible urgency to include unforeseen terrors, grief, sadness, separations and the inexorable passing of time, (much time), Heather and Harriet’s bond is tested to its limit.
As Harriet, seeking solace, takes to the sea on her first-ever cruise – the reader is left wondering: could the following gorgeously-phrased observation (one of my favorites, of many literary gems penned by this enormously talented author) suggest a long-overdue respite?
“I woke to calmer seas, to a sunrise like butter melting over liquid-gold waves.”
No spoilers here, you will need to read this beautifully moving book, to find out more.
A great big thank you to @orendaBooks for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.
