The Girl with Twenty Fingers - Kate Mueser - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Kate Mueser

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction.

RATING: 3.5 stars

In a Nutshell: A story about second chances and hope, coming to us from the world of music. Interesting characters, loads of musical trivia, thought-provoking themes. The writing style wasn’t my type - that’s the only factor that reduced my enjoyment of this work.

Story Synopsis:

Three years ago, Sarah shattered her dream of becoming a concert pianist by messing up an important performance of a Mozart concerto. Now, she works as a food magazine editor in Munich, even though she isn’t the least bit interested in anything culinary. Through a random meeting in a music shop, she encounters Herr Steinmann, an elderly gentleman with a passion for music and a classic grand piano. They begin to meet regularly at his place to play the four-hands works of Mozart. Through their interactions come out some dark secrets of the past, some redirection of the present, and some dreams for the future.

The story comes to us mostly in the third person limited perspective of Sarah.

I love music in any form, but when it comes to instruments, I am a bit biased towards the piano (and its electronic sibling – the keyboard) and the guitar. So when I saw this title, I knew I would give it a try mainly for the music. The story turned out to much more. A nice surprise.

Music has a prominent role to play in the content. Though the author smoothens out things wherever possible, I still feel that you will need to have a fundamental knowledge of either the piano or of classical music to really *get* the book. There are some amazing musical references here, be it in the form of trivia about composers and their compositions, or about the connect between classical and jazz music, or in the scenes where Sarah and Herr Steinmann collaborate on Mozart’s four hands pieces. There is also abundant usage of musical theory terms. While a lot of this is understandable, the subtleties will brush by those who aren’t familiar with the instrument or with classical music in general. If you do know your music though, you will appreciate how precisely the three sections of the book – ‘Allegro’, ‘Andante’, and ‘Presto’ – match their musical meanings.

The characters are also interesting. Sarah’s entire life was dominated by her dream of becoming a concert pianist, so when that was broken, her entire life went awry. It is nice to see how her interactions with Steinmann bring back that lost confidence, but not instantaneously. Many of the other characters are also well sketched. A couple of the relationships felt too instantaneous, but the rest is fine.

The second chances in this story aren’t restricted to Sarah. There are a few other characters, Steinmann included, who get their second chances as well. Some of these spring from mysteries and mistakes of the past, many of which offer plenty to think about. Some of these mysteries also focussed on some events during WWII, and these were greatly impactful as they came from a perspective we don’t often see in WWII fiction.

As the story is set mainly in Munich, it contains a lot about the local food and culture. I wish it had described the setting even more. Somehow, the details, though extensive, don’t lend themselves to a visual experience. I got the facts but not the feels. As this was my first contemporary novel set in Munich (I’ve read historical fiction based in the city), I was hoping for a more holistic experience of the location.

Where I mainly struggled a bit to get deeper into the book was with the writing. The style clearly favours a conversational approach, though this is not the case throughout the book. The first few chapters had the perfect balance of inner thoughts and external interactions. But after a point, the story started progressing mainly through characters’ interactions with each other. This is something that never works for me. Continuous scenes with extended conversations are a sure shot way of making me zone out.

The pacing is exactly as the three sections suggest. It begins at full speed, dips in between, and again increases at the end. It never feels rushed though. The overall tempo is quite languid.

Though most of the story is set in the contemporary time, there are many flashback incidents from various time points in the past. These are neatly marked at the start of the chapter, so the back and forth doesn’t get confusing.

All in all, this is a good story of a woman and a man, both struggling to overcome the defeats and the ills of the past. If you don’t mind the lengthy conversations and are comfortable with the basics of classical (piano) music, this debut indie novel can be a soothing option for you.

My thanks to author Kate Mueser for providing me with a complimentary copy of “The Girl with Twenty Fingers”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. The digital version of this book is currently available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.