A FABULOUS rollercoaster of emotions really enjoyed this book can highly recommend
Thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest review

I really enjoyed this book. Such a great, easy read with a wonderful story of love, sacrifice, and heartache. ❤️

An emotional and heartbreaking story about realising how wrong someone is for you, how important your friends are and how big dreams can come true. Sweet and cosy, loved it. (I also learned lots about instruments that I didn’t know!)

A beautiful book that will earn its place at the top of the New Year's book lists. For music lovers - 'a must' but less musically literate readers like me will be enthralled with what starts out to read as a romance set in a world of music, but becomes so much more.
Grace Atherton has so much love to give and for eight years has given it selflessly to David, her married lover, rushing to his Paris apartment whenever he calls and savouring the time and attention he ekes out to her. Having seen herself as a complete failure after being thrown out of music college she has invested everything in her deep love of David. When a drama catapults their affair into the headlines, Grace loses all hope of a future with him and slides into deep, angry despair. It is the intervention of an unlikely duo, her spikey, swearing 17 year old Saturday shop assistant Nadia, together with the gay eighty plus year old kindly Mr Williams, who show Grace that life can be good and that happiness abounds if you know where to look.
Harris's prose is beautiful. I have not used the words 'life affirming' before in a book review but I do now. The three major characters are utterly believable. Even David, the charmer, is so well written that he charms the reader for a time, but Anstey Harris gives life even to minor characters, enabling them, in a few words, to jump off the page and live. I heartily recommend 'The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton'..

I absolutely loved this book and couldn’t stop reading it! It’s a really well-written, warm and uplifting novel and, in my opinion, deserves to be a big success. The three main characters, Grace, Mr Williams and Nadia, are appealing and easy to relate to. There are some heart-stopping moments where I had to put the book down and recover(!) but ultimately this is such a rewarding novel and I will definitely be buying it for friends and recommending it. I loved the world of classical music in which the book is set and enjoyed reading about Grace’s work, which is to make and restore stringed instruments. The author sets a scene very well so I felt I was there, in Grace’s violin shop, in Paris, in Cremona, wherever she decided to take us. I won’t forget the wonderful friendship between spiky, talented Nadia, kind, wise Mr Williams and warm-hearted Grace, who makes mistakes like everyone else but is courageous enough to put them right. One of the best, most emotional books I have read in a long time.

If you loved the Keeper of Lost Things and Elinor Olliphant is Completely. Fine you will thoroughly enjoy this book too.
A powerful tale of an extremely bright woman who finally sees what can be achieved and how to change your life. I found it quite emotional because I could really relate to the characters. The characters are delightful and I look forward to reading more books by this wonderful author.

This book starts as a love story. The author has created very strong characters who are living in their own bubble of romance. He is married,she isn,t. (Grace and David).They meet often in his Paris apartment. This romantic idyll is challenged when he assists a woman who has fallen onto the tracks of the Paris metro. As a result his picture is in all the newspapers and social medial The author then takes us on the journey that wends its way through emotional turmoil as well as some stark revelations. Other characters are brought to life in the book. These are the people who know Grace through her work as a cello and violin maker. They all have a story that is intricately woven into the events that happen. I really had a sense of these characters lives and how they had coped with their own different life events.

I enjoyed the book tremendously, especially as it developed and demonstrated how Grace managed to turn her life around. Without her friends though it could have been a different story!

My only criticism was the ending. Somehow it didn't seem to have a great deal of substance in contrast to the rest of the book where substance and detail had sat comfortably with the story.

A good read though!

This is a lovely gentle book. Apart from an heroic rescue from the tracks of the metro, nothing dramatic or earth shattering happens. Instead we can enjoy a beautifully written and thoughtful love story. The characters are sympathetic and finely drawn; the story is credible and sensitive.
A peaceful, worthwhile read.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC

I adored this book, literally binge read it as was addicted from the beginning. I drew many parallels from Grace Atherton, trusting and loving the wrong people, not letting the right people in, and blaming the past for the actions of the present. The story unfolds as Grace opens up to those who deserve her trust and love and a life she should have been living unfolds. I cried for her and with her, laughed for her and with her, had such feelings of pride for her and her true friends. A truly inspirational story.

This was a wonderful book, beautifully written, with great characters. I loved them all - well, all but one. I never give any details of the story in a review, as you can get that from the fly leaf or on Amazon, and maybe knowing that the making of musical instruments plays a large part could put some people off - but please don’t let it.
I haven’t enjoyed a book so much for quite a while and didn’t want to put it down - and when I had to, I couldn’t wait to get back to it.
The story and writing seem quite stilted and stylised as first, but that’s just setting the scene. If you don’t read this book, you’ll miss something quite special.

Grace Atherton is a cello obsessed woman, who is having a relationship with the man who she feels will be with her forever. After a heroic act, it all starts to unravel as we discover that Grace has been living in a bit of a bubble, not seemingly to mind about his wife and family. As more information comes to light, we see him as the true man that he is and whilst I have some sympathy with Grace, you really want to shake her out of it.
Her reaction to the situation puts pressure on the people that surround her and the story opens up to the relationships she can maintain and help to flourish, however unlikely they may be. This is where the book is at its best, turning a wretched scenario into something more uplifting and heart warming.
It has been likened to Eleanor Oliphant and The Keeper of Lost Things but I feel it has its own originality and is not in the same vein.
I would recommend this as a good read, engaging and ultimately life affirming.

I loved this book. So much so that I've gone to sleep later than I should have done several days this week.
It wasn't quite what I expected; Grace's relationship surprised me for a start, and the music. I love books where you can feel music in their soul, where you want to look up the music referenced, which really bring out the character of the instruments (I loved the Piano Shop on the Left Bank for this very reason).
The book is effectively the story of before and after a key event in Grace's life (as alluded to in the abstract). There are a couple of shocking moments for any music lovers, but I love how the story unfolds, how the characters develop and gel together. The book risked a fairy tale ending, but thankfully the author resisted this, going for a much more satisfying alternative. I'd definitely recommend this as much as Eleanor Oliphant (and the Piano Shop on the Left Bank which I now want to reread!).

This book is a real gem of a find! It tells the tale of a lost soul who finally finds her way out of the mist to start living again. But of course she has to hit rock bottom before that can happen...

Beautifully written, the chapters are hardly noticed as the text flows so easily between them. The musicality also jumps out and hits you so much that I ended up listening to Bach, Shostakovich and Vivaldi to fill me with essence of the book. The description of the most amazing string instruments is just lovely, such attention to detail.

I loved it and I'm sure I won't be the only one. This is going to be a huge bestseller and deservedly so.

A sweet book with pleasant and likeable characters. Nothing groundbreaking but enjoyable non the less.

A gentle read, full of music and love. This novel has been compared to Eleanor Oliphsnt is Completely Fine. I am sorry though an enjoyable read it had none of the wit of Eleanor.

A true love story in every sense of the word.
Beautifully written story. Love, life and music.
I enjoyed this book.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

Grace Atherton is a musician who gave up playing her beloved cello in public when a humiliating and demeaning tutor kicked her out of music college. Since then she has made her living making, restoring and selling stringed instruments in her little shop in a Kentish town. She has an almost (cloyingly) perfect boyfriend and they spend precious times in his apartment in Paris before he returns to his demanding job in Strasberg. However we soon learn that he is returning to his wife and family in Strasberg too - Grace has been his mistress for 8 years putting her life on hold in so many ways and fervently believing his promises that they will be together as soon as his children are old enough to deal with the situation.

An incident in the Paris metro on the return from a classical concert together sets a whole chain of discoveries and events in motion and Grace, with the scales finally fallen from her eyes, reacts in a way that spoils not only the one thing she has been striving for, but also something precious belonging to her customer and good friend, Mr. Williams. It takes Mr. Williams and her Saturday assistant, a talented but spikey young woman called Nadia to get Grace back on track.

The book was a sweet, undemanding read. I liked the information about how violins and cellos are constructed and what makes them “work” and learned things I didn’t know. Anstey Harris writes well. I thoroughly disliked the boyfriend (not unexpectedly ) but unfortunately I was also not that keen on the central character Grace who was generally irritating, definitely naive for her age and a bit of a doormat. I liked the characters of Nadia and Mr. Williams and I certainly wanted to know how things would turn out, so for that reason it kept my interest.

My main criticism (apart from why do publishers insist on comparing new books with something successful already out there - it doesn’t make me more likely to buy it) would have to be that everything ended up so neatly perfect with all ends tied up which, for me, is what moved it from a pretty good read to something more like chick lit. However, overall a nice little read.

I loved 'The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton'. I was swept up by Grace's story from the start and enjoyed watching her blossom as she rebuilds her life after hitting rock bottom. The musical elements add richness and depth to the story and the redemption of the other characters in her unlikely trio ( troubled but brilliant teenager Nadia, and kind but lonely Mr Williams) makes the book triply satisfying.

A gentle, surprising book which was a pleasure to read. The story is about a woman finally taking control of her life by revisiting her past and the support of some unusual friends. It was a refreshing change from the usual formulaic girl comes right in the end tale.

Set in the world of classical music, the book educated me whilst not going overboard with intricate details about the subject. The characters were well written, at times showing raw emotion which tugged at the heartstrings and had you rooting for them while wanting to step in and fight their antagonists on their behalf.

The settings were described well and I easily lost myself in the streets of Paris along with the main character. Well written and researched.

Music and books are my favourite things in all the world and the two come together beautifully, with an intricately woven plot and characters nothing short of delightful. The friendships cultivated between people from completely different backgrounds is heartening, plus I now have a whole new playlist of gorgeous cello tunes to remind me of this lovely novel - though I rather suspect I’ll be reading it again at some time in the future. Definitely one for the bookcase! I loved it.