A Song Unheard

A Song Unheard
Roseanna M. White
Bethany House, 2018

It’s just another job to thief-for-hire Willa Forsythe, a well-paying job she and her family need. Tasked with stealing a hidden cypher key, Willa sets her sights on Lukas De Wilde, a famous violinist currently reported to be in possession of the key. Music has always drawn Willa and she relishes the chance to be close to the orchestra while she deceives her mark. But she soon realizes that the trick will be keeping her distance from the handsome, charming musician, knowing that she must betray him in the end.

Immediately drawn to her, Lukas’s attempts to woo Willa are met with coldness and suspicion, until he realizes her incredible talent with the violin. She reluctantly agrees to accept lessons from him, and Lukas decides that’s good enough for now, sure that she will open up to him if he is persistent enough.

But with a war beginning all around them there is more at stake than either of them realize. Behind his light hearted facade, Lukas is in constant fear for his mother and sister, trapped somewhere inside war-torn Belgium. He will stop at nothing to get them back – if he can somehow get a message to them using the key. And Willa soon learns that more than one person is watching Lukas, making her job all the harder and more dangerous, especially once she realizes that the coding machine the government seeks to unlock is not what it seems to be.

This post contains affiliate links. Read more about that here. This book was provided to me by Bethany House in exchange for an honest review.

Full of intrigue, romance, and redemption, A Song Unheard gets two thumbs up from me. It is the second in a series, though it could easily stand alone, and is fast-paced and engaging. I knew I would want to read it as soon as it came out, because I really loved the first book, A Name Unknown.

There is a lot going on with the plot of this book. The point of view jumps back and forth, primarily between Willa and Lukas, but also to Lukas’s sister Margot. Margot is a secondary but very intriguing and unusual character. She is only fourteen, but she is an old soul and thinks and acts much older, not to mention she is genius level brilliant, particularly with numbers. I loved how the chapters told from her perspective added an extra dimension to the plot and a sense of urgency to the story.

At the same time we see what’s going on with Lukas as he struggles to find his family and keep playing in the orchestra despite an injury he sustained the last time he went in search of them. When he meets Willa he is drawn to her, but she pushes him away at every step because she knows that if he knew who she really was he wouldn’t actually want her anyway. Both of them struggle with a lack of faith and believing that God can and will work in their lives if they let him.

● Another great book by Roseanna M. White: Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland ●

My favorite thing about A Song Unheard is the dialogue, especially between Willa and Lukas. It zings back and forth, like in this passage where Willa can’t speak French:

“How do you say ‘idiot’ in French?”
He grinned. “Mon amour. Try it out.”
She rolled her eyes instead – apparently even she knew that it meant “my love”.

And sixty pages later when she tries to discourage his devotion again in the same fashion:

“When we are married, will you insist on walking home alone?”
“You’re an idiot, Lukas De Wilde.”
“You and your sweet talk. Is it any wonder I am smitten?”

I also really liked the emphasis that the author puts on the fact that Willa is not beautiful in the way most heroines are typically portrayed to be. Lukas is drawn to her because of her talent and intelligence, not because of her looks. She is beautiful to him because of those traits. I will say that the cover is somewhat misleading in that regard, because the girl on the front of A Song Unheard is undeniably pretty. But I get why – you want to have the most appealing cover possible so people will buy your book, right? It’s understandable and I willingly forgive it.

If you like great dialogue between well-developed characters in a fast-paced world of war-time intrigue, then A Song Unheard might be for you. It’s hard to put a book down with such endearing characters and so much going on, not to mention the interesting historical and musical elements.