The Lost Love Song by Minnie Darke

 genre: contemporary fiction

When concert pianist Diana leaves her Australian home to travel the world on a tour, she takes with her a new song that she's written in honor of her love with her fiance Arie.   And while a tragedy abroad means that Diana never makes it home to Arie, her song takes on a life of its own as the notes themselves and the feeling they invoke will softly but definitely change the lives of those who hear it.

Here's the thing.  I LOVE music books, books where music changes people and changes lives - because music has done that for me.  Have you ever cried the first time you heard a song?  [I raise my hand] First time I heard Riverdance?  Cried.  First time I heard Eric Whitacre's Sleep?  Wept.  It's a thing, for those of us who feel music deeply that way.  So while maybe some of this might feel overwrought to some, for me, it made perfect sense, the way a melody can get into your brain and ribcage and just STAY.  I loved that this story followed a song through its iterations and I appreciated the main plot of Arie and how he moves on from his beloved Diana. I liked that this was a book about second chances and figuring out what we deserve in love.  I liked being in Australia and feeling how it's both familiar in its Englishness but foreign in so many way as well.  Did I feel like sometimes love happened too hard and too fast?  I did.  But I actively suspended my disbelief because I enjoyed the story so much.    Yes, it's a love story - but not a romance novel.  It's about more than just Him and Her figuring things out.  It's about all the ways we can find and keep the people that come into our lives that change us for good, even when they are no longer with us.