Susannah has given up her musical career to have her son. Her son is now 16 years old and she is ready to get back to her obsession. But, as you can guess, it is not as easy as one would think. Susannah has lost her magic. And to top it all off…she has been diagnosed with a hereditary disease in her hands. It is progressive and life changing.

I enjoyed the pace of this book. It moves quickly and does not slow down for one second. I think that is because Susannah is such a wonderful character. Life has thrown her some curve balls and she is determined to find out who she is and where she belongs!

Need a book about strength and resilience…this is it! Grab your copy today!

I received this novel from the author for a honest opinion. ( )

This book is my first introduction to this author. I did like this book and would read another book by the author. The overall story was lovely. It spoke of choices and how those choices had consequences and the value of family.

I did feel connected towards Susannah and her circumstances. As someone who is adopted, I could easily understand Susannah's feelings when she found out she was given away to be adopted. I have loving parents that I am grateful that they did adopt me. Unlike Susannah, I have never felt the need or desire to want to seek out my real birth mother.

Susannah's story is actually a sad one. Thus when she finally rises above the past and focuses on her future and her own family; there is a moment of happiness. While, I did like this story and was really into it for some reason at the half way point I lost some of my excitement about it. The latter half seemed to feel like it was moving at a slower pace. Overall, though I did find this book to be a nice read. ( )

Schubert knew he was dying when he wrote his B-flat major sonata. The piece was going to be Susannah's reentry into her lapsed career as a concert pianist. Her early gift had been set aside when she became a wife and mother. Now it was time to put music a priority in her life. Especially as there was a chance of being on a CD of composers who had died young.

But Susannah's little finger was not as responsive as it should be and a doctor delivered the horrible news: she had Dupuytren's contracture, and no one could predict how quickly it would progress or how severe it would become. There was no cure, and few treatments available.

Susannah would not to listen to the doctors, or her husband, and merely wait and see what developed. She would do everything to make her comeback a success and to prevent another sidelining of her career. Misha Dichter had overcome Dupuytren's. So would she.

I loved how the story is filled with music, composers, and the stories of the challenges they faced. I remember hearing some in concert, like Alicia de Larrocha and Vladamir Horowitz. The author is a serious amateur pianist and understands what she is writing about, and it shows. Susannah's search for just the right piano with the right touch struck home; I always had a challenge when I played a piano not my own.

When Susannah met her future husband Aaron he bonded with her father over Thomas Kuhn. I loved this reference! I had read Kuhn's book Structure of Scientific Revolutions in a Poly Sci class in my early college career.

Now, Susannah's father is losing his memory and will need to find Assisted Living soon. With her dad, preparing for her upcoming concert, her teenage son going his own way, and her husband trusting her to take care of all the domestic duties she had always been responsible for, the stress is building.

Aaron was the logical thinker, the scientist. Susannah was the creative one, the one who could speak through music. They had always relied on each other's strengths to balance. Now, by not listening to her husband's advice, a wedge had appeared between them. She had broken the unspoken contract; would their marriage survive it?

The Sound Between the Notes has great depth into human nature and family connections, including Susannah's feelings and relationships with her adoptive parents and biological family. The climax is dramatic and the resolution satisfying. Readers of women's fiction will enjoy this novel. Many of us will recognize the challenges of how changing marital roles require a paradigm shift that some couples overcome and others can not.

I previous read the author's novel The Queen of the Owls.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. ( )

t's difficult to describe this book beyond saying that it was one of the most beautifully written novels that I've read in a long time. I don't know anything about music or piano but I feel like the words in this novel were like the notes in a piece of music - each word and note carefully put together to create a work of art.

Also, I did gain some appreciation for classical music because after finishing this book, I listened to many of the pieces of music that were mentioned. I have long avoided classical music and after listening to the pieces mentioned in this book - I have no idea why I've avoided it -- it was beautiful.

Susannah quit her career as a pianist 16 years earlier when her son was born. She knew that she couldn't handle the difficult programs and contests and give her son the love and time that she felt he needed. She was an adoptee who was consumed with finding her birth family even though she had wonderful parents who adopted her as a baby. Still she felt that she'd been thrown away by her birth family and she wanted to make sure that her son never had the same feelings

Suddenly, she has the chance to audition for a charity function which would vault her back to a prestigious status. But she feels like she's lost some of the magic that she used to possess and strives to find it again. She finds out that she a a degenerative hereditary disease that makes her fingers cramp and is obsessed in finding a treatment. Will she be successful at her music while she tries to balance the needs of her husband and son?

This second book by Barbara Linn Propst shows again how fantastically she writes strong women characters who are successful in navigating the problems in their lives. ( )