Silent Music by Kate Lord Brown.

This story follows ballerina Tess from the 1940’s and 1960’s moving from one side of the world to the other

A lovely look at societal norms, fighting passion and so much more

I enjoyed this book about ballerina Tess and the story of her life from Hongkong in the war to New York York the sixties. Tess was an interesting character and showed the difference in times when choices were much more limited for women. A good book that I was quickly drawn into

i did not like this book. it's tragic, i know. but sometimes books just don't work with everyone. and that's okay. i hope you like this better than i did! let me know! thanks so much netgalley.

Silent Music is a great and lovely book. It started slow for me, but the magic and sweetness of Tess, the main character, helped me continue reading and I was very happy I did.

Silent Music by Kate Lord Brown.

This story follows Tess through past and present from the 1940’s and 60’s and the changing world and different continents.

Fast paced and once you read the prologue there is a lot of detail to take in. This shows how a woman of her generation is forced to conform but when her life as she knows it starts to unravel how she copes even though the relationship was very toxic.

Another well written from Kate . Some parts are not for the faint hearted and can be upsetting.

i always enjoy ballet stories, this book was a really good read. I had enjoyed Ms. Brown's previous work the Beauty Chorus. I look forward to reading more from her as I enjoyed these two books.

Wonderfully written historical fiction/ romance story. I loved this story from the very beginning to its wonderful ending!
The writing flowed beautifully, the characters were lifelike and likeable. Loved the multiple plot storyline. Made me cry.
5 stars.

At 189 pages, Silent Music is a short book but not one that should be rushed through. I tried doing that initially but thankfully my better sense prevailed and I took my time. To really like this book, you have to feel it. The language, prose and pace/rhythm of the book is slow, soft and sensuous. Reading this book was like watching a movie that left me mesmerised and my emotions in a tangle. Tess Blythe reminded me of Danielle Steele's heroines: the quintessential woman--breathtakingly beautiful, vulnerable, sensitive, emotional--feminine to the core while possessing an inner strength of character, determination and dignity which sees her rise like a phoenix reborn...she may not have been given the choice to decide how the first and second acts of her life story plays out but by the time of her third and final act, she is ready to take the reigns in her own hands and give her life a purpose and ending of her own choosing.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher BooksGoSocial and the author Kate Lord Brown for the e-Arc of the book.

Silent Music
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗻 9/29/2020
While I am continuing to post my regular content, the BLM movement is still going on. Please keep referring to my story and linktree to find ways to help out.✊🏻‼️

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The panic when you’re netgalley arc expires in three days, and you have to write your review as fast as possible.😬
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The Silent Music follows our main character Tess, through two timelines. The first being 1939, where she is getting married to her longtime friend Kit. She is pregnant, and in order to avoid public scrutiny, she decides to marry Kit out of convenience. The second timeline is 1960, when Kit asks for a divorce out of the blue, the very same night their son announces his engagement. Her perfect facade falling apart in both points in her life, the question and possibility of second chances repeats itself over and over.🥰
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I requested this arc because I saw the dancing feet on the cover. You guys know how much I love dance books, and I’m sorry to say they only really brought up Tess dancing one or two times throughout the course of the novel. Fortunately, that didn’t hinder my enjoyment, and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I ended up liking this slice of life tale. I enjoyed the messages it sprinkled in, and the juicy family drama was delightfully entertaining. That being said, I don’t think this is for everyone, and if you aren’t one to adore women’s fiction, then maybe pass this on one. I am glad I enjoyed it, and will possibly trying out some of the author’s backlist after this!🤗
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What women’s fiction book did you really like? Let me know!💋
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Dm me to talk about all things book or writing related! I’ll be looking forward to it! —Em😌

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As a former ballerina, I really enjoyed this book. The plot got a bit boring at times, but that was to be expected. I love the cover as well!

What a lovely book. A well written book, set in Hong Kong during the war and New York in the 60's covering subjects that weren't openly discussed at that time. Interesting! My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I greatly enjoyed this book, thank you for giving me a preview copy. The plot was interesting and fast paced and I sympathised with the characters. This is the first novel I have read by this author but I hope it will not be the last!

Surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. The two timelines flow nicely. They are well placed and well paced. This love story is full of hope, fulfilled dreams and life. While some parts were predictable, it didn't spoil anything for me.

I really enjoyed this book and how it explored the relationships between different characters across time and perspective. The depth of all the characters enabled them to become more than just the hero or villain, and made them feel more real. The main character, Tess, was brilliant and engaging and I cared about her very much. This book is an enjoyable, thoughtful and important read.

A beautifully written tale about a repressed wife who longs to follow her dreams. Achingly sad at times but wonderfully joyous at others.

Twists and turns throughout the whole story kept me hooked until the very last page.

Silent Music is a great and lovely book. It started slow for me, but the magic and sweetness of Tess, the main character, helped me continue reading and I was very happy I did. The book is well written describing each scenario perfectly. It gives the reader a perspective of two worlds in two different times; Hong Kong during the war and NY in the 60s, which can be confusing sometimes, but also captivating. It touches some important topics like domestic violence and abuse, which were unspoken during that time. I also liked the fact that the book introduces art and dance as an escape for Tess and it also brings comfort and confidence to the character. I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it.

I received a copy of this book to review via Netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity
This book is a sweet and lovely one. It has good writing that is a bit flowery at times with an interesting protagonist. It was a unique idea to contrast and compare Tess'past and present, demonstrating changes not only in her own life but it in the world at large.
I found it difficult to follow this book initially as the prologue and beginning few chapters seemed to have quite a bit of excess details, lingering on these details without giving strength to the invitation and development of the story.
The characters are engaging especially Tess. Be mindful of some trigger warning e.g. Domestic violence.
On the whol, a good book to relax with.

A sweet read, at times tense and heart wrenching. All about love in all its different forms, without being so much a love story. About a woman in the 60’s finding her feet in a world that wants to keep her in a neat little box. A timely read about how women have been pushing against those tight boundaries for generations. And sometimes succeeding.

What a heart-warming read this novel was! In a narrative that switches between 1940s Hong Kong and rural England to 1960s Manhattan and Cape Cod, we get to know ballet dancer Tess who wrestles with some major upheavals in her life: an initially unwanted pregnancy, the loss of her parents in a prisoner-of-war camp, her husband’s emotional cruelty demand for a divorce, their only son’s sudden announcement that he intends to get married and Tess’s unexpected falling in love with a man who, it turns out, is afflicted by a terminal disease.
Constructed mainly around dialogues and a series of social events – tea with the English countryside vicar, pre-wedding drinks in Manhattan, trips to restaurants and the opera – this is a fast-paced novel that hits all emotional triggers. Torn variously between guilt, remorse, dutifulness, longing, desire and pride always underpinned by a fierce protectiveness towards her son, Tess is a convincing protagonist. In the novel, she is supported by many other equally intriguing characters: her initially inscrutinable husband Kit, a generous country vicar by the name of Philip, Tess’s volatile son Bobby and his vivacious future bride Frankie who is watched over by her mother Claudia and uncle Marco. Add to this the evocative portrayals of the English countryside, 1960s New York and peaceful Provincetown on the northern tip of Cape Cod and the significance of a special pair of handcrafted shoes, and you have a novel that should appeal to many different readers. Fortunately, Kate Lord Brown is the author of five previous novels for those readers, like me, who did not want Silent Music to end!
I am grateful to Netgalley for letting me have an advance Kindle copy of this novel in return for this honest and unbiased review.

Kate Lord Brown takes you on a heartbreaking and heartwarming journey with Tess as she struggles through the end of a seemingly perfect marriage with the father of her child, Kit. Just as Tess is coming to grips with the idea of her marriage ending, her son announces his engagement which means she then has to repress her feelings and act the happy wife and mother - at least until after the wedding.
Whilst Tess tries to figure out what her future holds without her husband and child, she reflects on her past, looking at what led her to this point and trying to make sense of who she might be without them. During these visits to her past, we find out more and more of the secrets and heartbreaks that shaped Tess and 'forced' her into the role of dutiful wife and mother. It soon becomes clear that not all was as it seemed on the surface; both Tess and Kit were keeping secrets and dealing with their own internal conflicts.

There are a few occaisions where the narrative voice switches to another character's perspective and this is not always clearly defined. At some points, the perspective switch is done with the change of chapter, at other points it seems to change mid-chapter from one paragraph to the next. These mid-chapter changes in narrative voice can sometimes be a little hard to follow and does kind of disrupt the flow of the story. However, this could be down to a formatting error when it was changed into an e-book - which could also explain why the chapter changes become more obscure too (some changes are only indicated by a [?] type symbo).

My favourite part of reading stories set in the past is finding themes that resonate with experiences of modern life. One such theme presented in 'Silent Music' is feminism and how a woman is defined by the roles she plays in life. During the early to mid-1900s, women were still expected to follow the "traditional" path of becoming a wife and mother and there was the implicit idea that without those roles they were less of a woman. Although there are many other oportunities for women in modern life, and there is slightly more freedom of choice, there is still remnants of those ideas. We've all seen those articles pointing out which famous women have chosen not to have children like its something that makes them fundamentally wrong or lesser or even has to be analysed, right?

One of the most poingiant parts of the story, for me, was when Tess gets accosted by a construction worker in New York who tells her to "cheer up" and condescendingly asks 'you lose something?'. The last part of her retort really resonnated with me...:
"'So I say to you next time you feel the urge to tell some poor girl to cheer up, sweetheart, watcha lost?' she says, her eyes blazing, 'why don't you keep it to yourself because maybe, just maybe she has lost the most important thing in the world. Herself.'" -- Kate Lord Brown (page 223)
It's strong in that it packs so much power and sass, and yet why should she feel this way. Why should she feel like she has lost her identity just because a man (her husband) has left her?

As far as romance novels go, this one is jam packed with all the complexities that come with falling in and out of love. The characters are well rounded and believably flawed. The timelines are well managed: the glimpses into the past well situated in the current timeline giving you needed insight and back story whilst still moving the story forward.

Whilst I do recommend this book, I do need to caution that there are some potential triggers in this book including a toxic relationship, rape and some domestic violence.