A Bit About the Author:

ellieerose_ is a Watty award-winning writer who enjoys bubble tea, travelling (especially to Germany), historical fiction books, violin, and swing dancing. Her motivation is: "I write to inspire."

Title:

The title is short and simple. It's very eye-catching and gives off the story vibe, so to speak, and matches the story very well. I love how the title explanation is given at the end of the book. 

Cover:

Very simplistic, but it also fits the time period of the story. So I shan't complain. 

Blurb:

I seem to notice this reoccurring theme where your blurbs work as great synopses, but not as blurbs. When querying, I would definitely recommend you use this for your synopsis. But it's far too long and gives too much information for a blurb. We don't need that many details upfront unless we're an agent seeking to get your work published. 

The Good:

I love reading your work. The imagery, characters, and plot are very enjoyable, and as a historical fiction nerd, this satisfies me very much. I love seeing your writing improve with each book, and this one was very solid. The writing was, as said before, solid. The characters were well-drawn and easy to remember. The plot, I have a few things to say about that below, but it was fairly easy to follow and I enjoyed this story immensely. 

Also thank you for (spoilers) allowing a certain someone to live. It reminded me very much of a novella I wrote last year, My Fair Lady, and I was afraid you would let this person die. So many thanks for keeping said person alive. :D 

There, I tried to keep it spoiler-free. 

The Bad:

The only serious critique I have (and you made it better by the end) is the "mother-hating-daughter" trope that I've seen you use before. Once in awhile, it's alright, but as this was the second or third book from you that I've seen this in, it got rather boring. I did like how you had this resolved by the end, and I'm glad about that, but maybe try to provide more reasons as to why there's that conflict so it deepens the struggle and keeps it from becoming cliché. 

What the Reader Thought:

As said above, I love reading your books. I love your style and the type of stories you write. This one was no different. I loved it all the way through, the relationships, my SHIP, the music brought into it. *dies in happiness* I love the music analogies. Made my musical soul very happy. Plus Ruben and Rosie's relationship was a very unique dynamic between the tension of Gipsy and Nazi and I love how you pulled it off. 

One last note though. 

I think Rachmaninoff is better than Chopin though. ;P Sorry, Ruben and Rosie. 

Score: 9.5/10