Nothing Else by Louise Beech

Summary:

Heather Harris is a piano teacher and professional musician, whose quiet life revolves around music, whose memories centre on a single song that haunts her. A song she longs to perform again. A song she wrote as a child, to drown out the violence in their home. A song she played with her little sister, Harriet.

But Harriet is gone … she disappeared when their parents died, and Heather never saw her again.

When Heather is offered an opportunity to play piano on a cruise ship, she leaps at the chance. She’ll read her recently released childhood care records by day – searching for clues to her sister’s disappearance – and play piano by night … coming to terms with the truth about a past she’s done everything to forget.

An exquisitely moving novel about surviving devastating trauma, about the unbreakable bond between sisters, Nothing Else is also a story of courage and love, and the power of music to transcend – and change – everything.

My Review:

I have followed Louise Beech’s writing since my blog started back in autumn of 2014 and she is rare talent and I just love her writing. So, it is always exciting to hear of a new book coming and then it arrives. Nothing Else (Orenda Books) will be released on 23 June. When a book can break you and then put you back together again, you know it is something rather special. Nothing Else really is.

Having read many of t books by Louise Beech she really is a writer who just when you think you know her style, she will surprise you with something unique and different. What Nothing Else proves above all is just what an amazing writer she really is. And in her new novel Louise brings together many emotions all of which you the reader will experience.

We are introduced to Heather who is a pianist and now piano teacher and will always love teaching children to play. But the past is haunting her and the sister she lost when they were very young. Sometimes it is just something that will spark the memory and the haunting of the past and so Heather decides that she may not have made before and takes a job playing the piano on a cruise ship as it crosses the Ocean. Surely the past cannot affect her here as she plays to entertain the passengers several times during the day. Before she departs on a new venture, Heather makes a dramatic decision and requests copies of records from the Social Services, and while on board ship she will try and find out what really happened to her sister all those years ago. And here the story really begins and the reader.

As the story moves back and forth the picture of the past appears and the emotional journey will take the reader through a whole range of emotions. And this is what Louise Beech is good at is telling a superb character driven novel and taking the reader on a journey. It is heart-breaking at times.

I have loved music since childhood and still plays an important part in my life, so this is a story I loved from start to finish, yes there is a tragic past and I am not going to give anything away here, what I will say is, before you start reading and you have access to Spotify, download the Nothing Else – The Playlist, yes there is one and if you are looking for a new book, then Nothing Else by Louise Beech, must be at the top of your list. One of my books of 2022. Thank you, Louise, you have done it again.

276 Pages.

My thanks to Karen Sullivan (Orenda Books) and Anne Cater (Random Things Tours for the review Copy of Nothing Else by Louise Beech. Published by Orenda Books on 23 June 2022 and is now available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop or through Bookshop.org that supports your local independent bookshop. UK Bookshop.org

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