From the back of the book:

This morning the musician was playing again. The melodies seldom stop: today it was the piano, yesterday the violin. I have never heard such hauntingly beautiful music. It flows out from the upper windows of that Tudor style house and straight into my aching heart—the fog of desolation which has been weighing me down for years lifts: my buried hopes and dreams from childhood fight to rise from the dust. How can I endure what I must live with, when this music now lives in me?

Lunatic genius? Hideous hunchback? Wild speculations about the identity of the cloistered musician consume one sleepy town like wildfire, after a reclusive family moves in. From the top floors of a lonely house the music blankets that part of town as if in a passionate spring rainstorm. For one young woman, all that matters is that the heavenly strains have woken her mind to the lost ideals beyond the existence which imprisons her. Unseen, unknown, the source of this music will change her life forever…

Story Inspiration:

It was a song. From a favorite old movie. A piece of piano music that I played over and over again. I couldn’t get away from it, or get it out of my head. It wasn’t long before the story of The Musician began to form in my mind alongside that song.

The piece of music was slightly melancholy whilst being romantic, so, of course, the novel that evolved out of the song emotes those notes. Mixed feelings. Sadness, love, tragedy, triumph.

Almost unbelievably, I still love that music, even though I played that song in a loop all the while I wrote the novel. I’ve never played one song while writing an entire novel before nor since. That one short piece was inspiration in spades.

Some of my readers have told me that this story reminds them of Anne Bronte’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’. If true, what a compliment. I can’t exactly recall, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I was influenced by that novel. I’ve certainly read it enough times. If so, it is the man, the musician, who is the mysterious loner artist who wishes to keep to himself. Yes, and come to think of it, there are other similarities.

“The Musician” is available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Musician-Kerri-Bennett-Williamson/dp/1460984986