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Master of Music

Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks

Not long after the Druids came to Eire, the Bards mysteriously vanished from the annals of history, fleeing their native shores to begin life on a remote chain of islands ... the Bardic Isles. Over two hundred years later, a village boy is born with a gift of music that hasn't been seen since the exodus from Eire. Not understanding what he possesses, seven-year-old Kaelin is convinced his music is responsible for an unforgivable act. Suffused with guilt, he plays his homemade flute only in the privacy of the woods and buries it every night before returning home. Four years later, a Master Bard visits the village and plays the music Kaelin played in the woods the night before. To the boy's shock, no one is hurt by it. When the Master leaves, Kaelin faces a decision ... can he bring himself to follow the only person who might be able to free the torturous music within him? And if his music is freed, can he live with the consequences?

 

"Master of Music" is pure, character-driven storytelling, and the only thing that places it in the world of fantasy is the incredible power of music itself. Unique in the fantasy genre, it is also a first-of-a-kind audiobook, with music of the Bardic Isles that's vividly described in the book, all of which was composed by the author. Enjoy your trip to the Bardic Isles!

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 3, 2023
      This rich fantasy debut centers on a musical prodigy apprenticed into a Bardic Order, centuries after the last time anyone so gifted has plucked a harp, blown a flute, or composed a tune. Eleven-year-old Kaelin will only play his self-made flute in the woods, away from people, for fear of the harm he believes his music can wreak upon others. Just as he’s about to be apprenticed to a woodcarver, Kaelin is jolted to hear a song of his own composition played by Bergid, a traveling Master Bard of Kestrel, who agrees to train Kaelin for one month to determine if Kaelin truly has what it takes to be a bard.
      Bergid, though, is quickly dazzled by Kaelin’s gifts, which seem connected to something ancient and lost, especially the lad’s ability to capture the musical essence of animals and objects—even seeming to journey, briefly, into a feather that inspires a composition. Complicating matters, of course, is Bardic politics, and the mystery of Kaelin’s refusal to play for anyone other than Bergid. Bergid makes some unorthodox choices in his tutelage, decisions that might provoke the ire of the Bardic Council, though Himeda’s interests are less in suspense than in connections: she writes warm, loving scenes of master and apprentice discussing music, discovering Kaelin’s talents, and traveling the novel’s Celtic island world, which is revealed to readers as it is to the novel’s young hero, who is touchingly awed by the sea.
      Himeda writes lush, engaging scenes of travel and music-making, in exacting and evocative prose, but the novel picks up its pace once Kaelin is being tested by Bard Masters and also showcasing another trait—connected to music, of course—that Bergid has cultivated in him: compassion. Readers shouldn’t expect a plot-driven page turner, though the novel’s third “movement” contains more drama than its first two, but overall this is a humane fantasy blissout of training and deepening relationships, with musicology as magic.
      Takeaway: Music is magic in this charming, richly written apprenticeship fantasy.
      Comparable Titles: Mercedes Lackey’s Bardic Voices series, Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana.
      Production grades
      Cover: B
      Design and typography: A
      Illustrations: N/A
      Editing: A
      Marketing copy: A-

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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