Musical Novels Published in 2024
Find your next book to hunker down with and read over the winter season with this selection of new books with a musical storyline, whether that’s Vivaldi’s star pupil, a philandering violinist forced to confront the wreckage of his past, or a pianist who can no longer perform due to a terrible skin disease. For a bumper list of recently published musical novels, visit our online bookshop at Bookshop.org.
The
Instrumentalist
Harriet Constable, published in August 2024 Paperback coming in June 2025
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Anna Maria may have no name, no fortune, no family. But she has her ambition, and her talent. Her best hope lies in her teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. Soon she is his star pupil. But as Anna Maria’s star rises, not everyone is happy. Because Anna Maria’s shining light is threatening to eclipse that of her mentor… She will leave her mark, whatever it takes. And her story will be heard.
The Fetishist
Katherine Min, published in 2024
Paperback coming in January 2025
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The Fetishist is the story of three people - Kyoko, a Japanese American punk-rock singer full of rage and grief; Daniel, a philandering violinist forced to confront the wreckage of his past; and Alma, the love of Daniel's life, a Korean American cello prodigy long adored for her beauty, passion and talent, but who spends her final days examining if she was ever truly loved.
An exuberant, provocative story that confronts race, complicity, visibility, and ideals of femininity, The Fetishist was written before the celebrated author's untimely death in 2019. Startlingly present, as wise and powerful as it is utterly delightful, this novel cements Katherine Min's legacy as a writer with a singular voice for our times.
The Well of Saint Nobody
Neil Jordan
Paperback published in August 2024
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William Barrow finds himself in lonely retirement in West Cork. Once an internationally renowned pianist, a terrible skin disease has attacked his hands and made it impossible for him to perform. Tara is a piano teacher with barely enough pupils to pay the month’s rent. In the local café, the elegant writing of a job advertisement catches her eye: ‘Wanted. Housekeeper.’ She begins to work in William’s house, keeping to herself the knowledge that they have met three times before – encounters that have changed her life, to which he is oblivious.
Gripping and lyrical, The Well of Saint Nobody is a story of love, secrets and the elusive possibility of second chances.
Honeybees and Distant Thunder
Riku Onda, translated by Philip Gabriel
Paperback published in April 2024
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In a small coastal town just a stone's throw from Tokyo, a prestigious piano competition is underway. Over the course of two feverish weeks, three friends will experience some of the most joyous - and painful - moments of their lives. Each of them will break the rules, awe their fans and push themselves to the brink. But at what cost?
Tender, cruel, compelling, Honeybees and Distant Thunder is the unflinching story of love, courage and rivalry. Most of all, it shows how three young people reconcile with the highs and lows of what it means to truly be a friend.
August Blue
Deborah Levy
Paperback published in May 2024
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At the height of her career, concert pianist Elsa Anderson - former child prodigy, now in her thirties - walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance.
Now she is in Athens, watching as another young woman, a stranger but uncannily familiar - almost her double - purchases a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins a journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who bought the dancing horses.
A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis, August Blue uncovers the ways in which we seek to lose an old story, find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew.
The Lost Steps
Alejo Carpentier, translated by Adrian Nathan West
Paperback published in January 2024
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A new translation of a classic by Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980).
Dissatisfied with his empty, Sisyphus-like existence in New York City, where he has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate advertising, an aspiring composer wants nothing more than to tear his life up from the root. He soon finds his escape hatch: a university-sponsored mission to South America to look for indigenous musical instruments in one of the few areas of the world safely untouched by the industrial world. Retracing the steps of time, he voyages with his lover into a land that feels outside of history, searching not just for music but ultimately for himself, and turning away from modernity towards the very heart of what makes us human.
Natural Beauty
Ling Ling Huang
Paperback published in April 2024
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Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.
Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and gives her a long-awaited sense of belonging. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister.
Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost.
The Piano Player of Budapest
Roxanne de Bastion
Hardback published in June 2024, paperback coming in June 2025
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All future, freedom and success lay ahead of young pianist Stephen de Bastion in 1930s Hungary. Life whirled headily around cocktails, romance, applause and the buzz of Budapest late into the night. Then, 1939. Stephen's world disintegrates and this becomes a story of his brutal descent, of his time in labour camps, and the unimaginable horrors he endured during the Holocaust as a man of Jewish descent. Yet, this is also a tale of extraordinary escape ... and the piano, waiting for him.
The same piano that Roxanne de Bastion, his granddaughter, inherits when her father dies. It has been in the family over one hundred years but it is only when, deep in grief, she discovers a cassette recording of Stephen, that the astonishing history of the piano, the man and her family begins to unravel. Weaving together his original recordings, unpublished memoirs, letters and documents, Roxanne sings out her grandfather's story of music and hope, lost and found.
The Rebel Pianist of Majdanek
Nicola Pittam
Paperback published in March 2024
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Former Polish teenage piano prodigy Mosha Gebert is teaching when the Nazis come for her. They kill her student, but she is taken to Majdanek concentration camp. There, Commandant Josef Hanke spots her and recognises her as the pianist he fell in love with years earlier.
Hanke demands that Mosha play Ode to Joy for him, but she refuses. She will never play in such a horrific place - or for such an evil monster. So begins a battle of wills and repeated torture. Even when Hanke causes her to lose her hearing, Mosha refuses to play.
Mosha believes crippling herself is the only way for her to survive and triumph over Hanke, but what will this do to him? Will Hanke forgive her? Or will this last desperate act finally push him over the edge?
Hannah Fiddy is a creative entrepreneur, developing new audiences for classical music. She has created and promoted numerous concerts outside of traditional spaces, including warehouses, pubs, clubs, museums, hospitals, prisons and even in Primark. Hannah is also an interviewer, writer and guest lecturer, and runs the Avon Chamber Choir in Bristol. In a past life she founded London Flashmob, producing quirky events from wedding proposals to cultural pranks for up to 1,000 people.