Historical fiction about a young woman’s search to recover the separated movements of a sonata. As a child living in Prague, Otylie inherits a musical score from her father, who was killed in WWI. She breaks the score into three parts to hide it from the Nazis during WWII. In 2000, an elderly woman entrusts one of the parts to Meta, a musicologist and former concert pianist. Meta feels compelled to put her current life on hold to pursue the missing pieces. Her search takes her to the city of Prague, where she meets a variety of colorful characters, some of whom prove helpful, while others attempt to sabotage her efforts.

The writing is beautifully descriptive, especially the details about life in Prague. The storyline encompasses many timeless themes, such as family relationships, friendship, the far-reaching impacts of war, love, sacrifice, betrayal, idealism vs. pragmatism, and music as a source of inspiration and motivation. The story spans multiple time lines, including WWI, WWII, 1989, and 2000, and tends to jump backward and forward frequently. It is extremely detailed in places and includes musical jargon that may not be familiar to all readers. The upside of this use of musically descriptive language is the author’s ability to present an almost audible quality to the work. In addition to being an entertaining reading experience, I thought the author skillfully conveyed a message about the importance of preserving art and music for the enjoyment of future generations.

Recommended to classical music lovers and those interested in Czech history or culture. I requested and received an advance copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for a candid review. It is scheduled to be released on 10/3/17.
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Enjoyed this novel very much. I don’t know anything about classical music and found it interesting how music is authenticated. The sonata follows an exciting journey from war torn Prague, present day Prague , to Prague Nebraska. I was hooked by the mystery, historical detail and the rich characters. As an aside, I have been to Prague and I think my favorite part of this novel was when Meta explores this beautiful and unique city. ( )

I saw this on a Fiction table at a local bookstore and I was intrigued by the premise of a lost musical manuscript being rediscovered years after it disappeared. I visited Prague back in 2015 and loved my visit. This novel takes great advantage of the city and I was very pleased with how much I knew of the geography used. It also has a lot about music and composition and I also found that to be well done, although I have NO knowledge in the area. I found the story to be mostly interesting and satisfying, and the characters to be enjoyable to spend time with. I do think that Mr. Morrow threw in at least one flashback too many. The book moves between many different time lines, mostly a current day (year 2000) story and flashbacks for the story of the manuscript that starts in the 1920s and moves ahead with each flashback. But there is a character who was introduced part way through the novel who became a central part of the story and he throws in a decent sized flashback to the Velvet Revolution, which is a very interesting time and the writing is interesting, but I started to feel a little bounced around as we were moving along three timelines for a while. I think we could have had the pertinent information revealed without a full diversion. But this is a minor quibble and one I often have with multiple timeline books. I can definitely recommend this book. ( )

Engaging story that weaves WWII Prague and current (2000's) to find the missing pages of a sonata manuscript. Part of the sonata lands in the main character's hands and she has to track down the owners of the other two parts and possibly find the original owner.

The book flows and moves the reader along. There's some cloak and dagger that I found unnecessary and thought it detracted from the story. Other than that I enjoyed this novel. ( )

The Prague Sonata, Bradford Morrow, author; Christina Delaine, narrator
The novel piqued my interest because it was about a lost music manuscript from the time of the Holocaust. I read everything I can about that time, fiction and non-fiction.
Although the book may be a very good print read, as an audio, I found it lacking. The narrator over emotes and takes over the narrative with a slow and over emotional presentation, in a sexy voice that is totally inappropriate for something meant to be scholarly.
The author’s writing tends to the poetic and feels overdone with description and dialogue that seems extraneous and unnecessary much of the time. Had I not known the author was male, because of the flowery language, I would have thought it was stereotypical of a female author. On the positive side, there seemed to be a great deal of research devoted to this book, and that is very obviously commendable. Still, the information gets lost in the presentation by this narrator who reads facts as if they were written by Keats or a classical poet.
After listening to about half of the book, I realized that I was dreading it, each time I returned to it. Perhaps I will try the hard copy, because this was definitely a turn off. Water would boil faster than the tempo of the reading. The investigation into the manuscript seemed to promise more than was delivered. ( )