The Sound Between the Notes by Barbara Linn Probst: Book Review

Savannah Lewis is a woman who happily gave up her classical music career to raise her son, James. However, when James is a teenager, Savannah is recommended for a high-profile performance by her long-time teacher. Savannah recognizes the performance as an opportunity to reestablish her career. The novel begins with her auditioning for that performance.

This event creates ripple effects throughout her family life. Just as she is dreaming about moving ahead with her music, she discovered she has a hereditary condition that may end her playing. Savannah was adopted at birth by a loving couple which totally supported her music and repeatedly told her how excited they were when they got her. For Savannah, however, she wondered about her birth family and always felt she had been discarded by her birth mother. When she found they had a child after her that they kept, that feeling was intensified.

The author does an expert job of showing the complications that can result from change. Her relationship with James is impacted when she fails to remember things she had committed to do for him. And her relationship with her husband becomes strained when they have different opinions about her treatment for her hands and she fails to yield to his expertise.

The Sound Between the Notes is beautifully written. The characters are well-developed and highly relatable. The story is compelling and there was never a moment I wanted to put the book down. I was not surprised the author has a background as a pianist. The passages about Susannah were written with such authority, it would have had to be so.  I highly recommend this book.