Monday, March 19, 2018

A Song Unheard- Roseanna M. White

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Description: Willa Forsythe is both a violin prodigy and top-notch thief, which make her the perfect choice for a crucial task at the outset of World War I—to steal a cypher from a famous violinist currently in Wales.

Lukas De Wilde has enjoyed the life of fame he's won—until now, when being recognized nearly gets him killed. Everyone wants the key to his father's work as a cryptologist. And Lukas fears that his mother and sister, who have vanished in the wake of the German invasion of Belgium, will pay the price. The only light he finds is in meeting the intriguing Willa Forsythe.

But danger presses in from every side, and Willa knows what Lukas doesn't—that she must betray him and find that cypher, or her own family will pay the price as surely as he has.


My Thoughts: Oddly, though I have been a follower of this author for years, I've never actually read one of her books. And now that I have read this one, I'm kind of kicking myself for the negligence.

Something that has always been my favorite part of any novel is the characters. For me, good characters can cover over a multitude of errors and plotholes, and A Song Unheard has great characters. Perhaps my favorite was Lukas, that man trying to forge a better future than he had already been moving toward. From the moment he first asked Willa to marry him, I knew that he was going to be an interesting hero. Willa was another great character, though I am sure I would have appreciated her more had I read the previous book about her sister.

Beyond the characters, I loved the way that Roseanna brought them together. Though I have no real knowledge about music, I know what it is like to be dedicated to an art that frames the way you look at the world. And more than that, Roseanna set up this couple's love of music as a way for Lukas to support Willa even though she could outshine him. That willingness to put her ahead of himself was what ultimately made him such an awesome hero.

The one downside to the novel, and really the only thing that I had trouble looking past, was the amount of repetition. Though this did not take place as it typically does in novels, with characters restating the same thoughts and ideas over and over, it was none the less a little bothersome when the characters would repeat words and phrase close together for emphasis. Maybe this is part of the author's writing style, but it did happen a few too many times for me to give this a perfect rating. Despite that, I absolutely loved this book and can't wait to go back and read others by this author.

I have provided an honest review after having received a copy of the book from the publisher.

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