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"A razor-sharp debut novel about an ambitious young opera singer caught between devotion to her craft and an all-consuming affair with an older man"-- Anna doesn't fit in. Not with her wealthy classmates at the selective London Conservatory where she unexpectedly wins a place after university, not with the family she left behind, and definitely not with Max, a man she meets in the bar where she sings for cash. He's everything she's not--rich, tailored to precision, impossible to read--and before long Anna is hooked, desperate to hold his attention, and determined to ignore the warning signs that this might be a toxic relationship. As Anna shuttles from grueling rehearsals to brutal auditions, she finds herself torn between two conflicting desires: the drive to nurture her fledgling singing career, which requires her undivided attention, and the longing for human connection. When the stakes increase, and the roles she's playing--both on stage and off--begin to feel all-consuming, Anna must reckon with the fact that, in carefully performing what's expected of her as a woman, she risks losing sight of herself completely.… (more)
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I love novels in which women destroy their own lives and this is a variation of that, although Anna is less self-destructive than simply an over-whelmed person who make an occasional bad, but understandable, decision that balloons into disaster. It's less watching someone burn down their own life than it is a reminder at how precarious life is for so many. Anna is hampered by having been raised by an anxious and over-protective mother and parents who do not support her, financially or emotionally. This is also a novel about the process of studying to become an opera singer, how competitive, repetitious and exciting that world is and how hard it is for someone without outside support and resources to make a go of it, regardless of talent. This is a well-written book that I enjoyed enormously.