Book Review and Giveaway: The Lost Melody by Joanna Davidson Politano

THE LOST MELODY
by
Joanna Davidson Politano
Historical Romance / Christian Fiction
Publisher: Revell
Pages: 384 pages
Publication Date: October 4, 2022
SCROLL DOWN FOR GIVEAWAY!
When concert pianist Vivienne Mourdant’s father dies, he leaves to her the care of a patient at Hurstwell Asylum. Vivienne had no idea the woman existed, and yet her portrait is shockingly familiar. When the asylum claims she was never a patient there, Vivienne is compelled to discover what happened to the figure she remembers from childhood dreams.
The longer she lingers in the deep shadows and forgotten towers at Hurstwell, the fuzzier the line between sanity and madness becomes. She hears music no one else does, receives strange missives with rose petals between the pages, and untangles far more than is safe for her to know.
But can she uncover the truth about the mysterious woman she seeks? And is there anyone at Hurstwell she can trust with her suspicions?
Joanna Davidson Politano casts a delightful spell with this lyrical look into the nature of women’s independence and artistic expression during the Victorian era–and now.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

“Haunting. Riveting. Filled with hope. The Lost Melody is all these things and more. Author Joanna Davidson Politano delves into the dark world of Victorian mental health, and it’s the reader who comes out the winner after being enchanted by this tale of identity lost. After you read the last page, the characters will live on in your mind. Truly a fantastic read!” — Michelle Griep, author of Lost in Darkness

“Joanna Davidson Politano’s stories go on my bookshelf as a favorite! The stories she pens entice my Gothic-loving senses, thrill my literary soul, and inspire the dark romantic inside my spirit. I cannot emphasize enough how strongly I adore each story from this vivid and insightful author, and how badly I wish for all readers to experience her tales!” — Jaime Jo Wright, author of The Souls of Lost Lake, and Christy Award-winning The House on Foster Hill

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After his death, Vivienne is unable to locate her father’s elusive ward, Rosamond Swansea, either by direct inquiry or by gaining employment at the asylum as an aid under an assumed name. Someone knows Vivienne for who she is, though, and does not wish her to succeed in finding Rosamond. Darkness soon seems to overtake her as she finds herself deemed mad by the powers that be at the asylum, held there against her will with what appears to be no hope of escape.

But trapped in circumstances she cannot control, Vivienne soon begins to see the women around her at Hurstwell not just as broken, irredeemable bodies, but as people. And even in the darkness, music finds a way – to reach her; to reach Doctor Mitchell Turner, struggling since the death of his wife while in the asylum’s care; to reach the patients who have been cast off by society, forgotten, considered to be broken and worthless.

Politano does a marvelous job of weaving Scripture throughout the book. The story of the apostle Paul in prison figures significantly in Vivienne’s gradual realization that maybe – just maybe – she IS right where she belongs, and that God DOES have a purpose for her there. I love how one of the other patients at the asylum reminded Vivienne, when she was talking about how she had to get back to her life outside the asylum, to what she was meant to do, that “not right now you ain’t, because you’re here. And nothing happens without the Almighty’s say-so.”

There are a lot of tense moments in the story, and Politano pulls no punches in her descriptions of the conditions inside the asylum. The superintendent of the asylum rules with a heavy hand, consumed by fear and hatred stemming from a painful event deep in his past. But even he comes to see that the darkness he carries cannot blot out the radiance that God shines into hidden corners through Vivienne and her music.

“For all the locking up he’d done, all the patients he’d managed to control with cells and restraints, there was one thing those walls could not contain.

“Light.”

And at its heart, that’s what the story is about: the triumph of light over darkness. Vivienne determined what she thought her path should be. But God disrupted her plans and put her into the darkest place she could envision so that, if she would let it, His light could shine through her and touch lives in ways she had never imagined.

“We’re all of us told to walk in the light, but we don’t. We simply wish to drag the light over to where we’re already standing, so we may better see the path we’ve set out for ourselves. I dearly wished to set my own path. To take control for once in my life. But perhaps I wasn’t meant to – not in the way I’d tried it, anyway.”

In the end, The Lost Melody is a fascinating, well-researched peek into the beginnings of music therapy and the treatment of mental health issues in the late nineteenth century, a clean romance in an unexpected setting, and a testament to God’s ability to take all things and work them together for good for those who are called according to His purpose, to bring beauty from what we see as only ashes. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. It’s a five-star read for me.

Joanna Davidson Politano is the award-winning author of Lady Jayne Disappears, A Rumored Fortune, Finding Lady Enderly, The Love Note, and A Midnight Dance. She loves tales that capture the colorful, exquisite details in ordinary lives and is eager to hear anyone’s story. She lives with her husband and their children in a house in the woods near Lake Michigan.
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY GIVEAWAY!
ONE WINNER!
Receives a Sterling Silver Treble Clef pendant necklace
+ Copy of The Lost Melody
(US only; ends midnight, CDT, October 14, 2022.)

FOR DIRECT LINKS TO EACH POST ON THIS TOUR, UPDATED DAILY,
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3 Responses to Book Review and Giveaway: The Lost Melody by Joanna Davidson Politano

  1. I love that the setting is so unexpected for this category of book — and that it WORKS so well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

  2. I’ve read a good bit of gothic and Christian historical fiction, but never something that wove the two quite so well as this. Glad you enjoyed as well!

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