Partita, Hardcover

A TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY '- THE TIMES

'SUBTLE, UNDENIABLE, AND THEN FULL-ON BLAZING' - RACHEL JOYCE

'A VIRTUOSIC PERFORMANCE' - THE FINANCIAL TIMES

'PROFOUND . . . I WAS GRIPPED BY IT, UTTERLY' - KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE

'FULL OF PATHOS, WISDOM AND HUMOUR' - THE SPECTATOR

'I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN' - BONNIE GARMUS

You've taken Demon to your hearts, prepare for another 'emotionally raw, riotously entertaining' read as you meet Livia.

A song without any answer in it? That's the sound of waiting.

Livia Bohusz misses her brother, Cyrus. Unmoored by his death, and the stifling silence of the family farm, eleven-year-old Livia has no choice but to survive. Her only solace: music, an escape in the quiet rapture piano practice brings. The promise of a new life her talent offers, intoxicating.

So when Livia starts her college music scholarship it feels as if a new life might begin. Immersing herself in her passions in a world where she excels, even as she struggles to fit in with more urbane classmates, she glimpses the possibilities of a life beyond the farm and her parents.

Then one springtime, as the smell of reviving grass and crocuses and the sounds of songbirds fill the air, Livia catches a glimpse of shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, muscles you wouldn't miss in the rear view:

'Who is that man?'

It is a question Livia may come to wish she had never asked.

From one of the greatest writers alive comes Livia's story, Partita, both a coming-of-age narrative and an examination of midlife hopes and regrets, a novel as simple as love and longing, as touching, complex and finely tuned as the music it celebrates.