Review of "Concerto" by Hannah Fielding

When Catriona Drouot, a young music therapist, honours an opera diva’s dying request to help her son, Umberto Monteverdi, recover his musical gift, she knows it will be a difficult assignment. She had shared a night of passion with the once-celebrated composer ten years before, with unexpected consequences.
The extent of her challenge becomes apparent when she arrives at her client’s estate on the glittering shores of Lake Como. Robbed of his sight by a nearfatal car accident, the man is arrogant, embittered and resistant to her every effort to help him. Still, Catriona sings a siren’s call within him that he cannot ignore.
Caught up in the tempestuous intrigues at Umberto’s Palladian mansion, Catriona discovers that her attraction to the blind musician is as powerful as ever. How can she share what she has hidden from him for the past decade? Soon she realises that hers is not the only secret that is rippling uneasily below the surface. Dark forces haunt the sightless composer, threatening his life – for the second time.
Concerto is a sensual and romantic story of lost love and forgiveness, destiny and difficult choices, and of a heroine determined to put things right at last.

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My review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Stars

Beguiling romantic read

Catriona Droucot, tall, elegant beautiful, had trained to be an opera singer. She now devotes her energies to helping others via psychology and music therapy. The latest case she is asked to take on, that of the famous composer Umberto Monteverdi who has recently become blind, stirs up old memories and emotions.

Through flashbacks chapters the reader sees Umberto and Catriona and their developing relationship, a romance of tenderness, power and passion. Hannah Fielding perfectly explores the magic of music, of beautiful settings and a hero who will remain in my mind for a long time.

And in all this lavishness, who is seducing whom? However, too soon the demands of Umberto's demanding career cause the young couple to part, after one night of love which leaves Catriona pregnant with her son Michael. She hopes Umberto will keep in touch but, in the whirlwind of concerts and compositions, Umberto seems to have forgotten her and Catriona does not want to be a burden. In the light of this she retrains as a music therapist and tried to forget Umberto, until fate throws them together once more.

With its gorgeous settings in the Riviera and Italy, this novel is a treat for all the senses, a kind of modern beauty and beast, with secrets, villains and dangers in the palace where the beast Umberto has retreated. Meanwhile music makes a beautiful redemptive healing thread throughout the novel, thoroughly apt and marvellous.

Totally recommended.

Lindsay Townsend