The Sound Between The Notes: A Novel

by Barbara Linn Probst

Overview

A 2021 Kirkus Reviews' Best Indie Book of the Year
2021 Sarton Book Awards: Gold Medal Winner in Contemporary Women's Fiction





The highly anticipated new novel from the multiple award-winning author of Queen of the Owls . . .

What if you had a second chance at the very thing you thought you’d renounced forever? How steep a price would you be willing to pay?

Susannah’s career as a pianist has been on hold for nearly sixteen years, ever since her son was born. An adoptee who’s never forgiven her birth mother for not putting her first, Susannah vowed to put her own child first, no matter what. And she did.

But now, suddenly, she has a chance to vault into that elite tier of “chosen” musicians. There’s just one problem: somewhere along the way, she lost the power and the magic that used to be hers at the keyboard. She needs to get them back.  Now.

Her quest—what her husband calls her obsession—turns out to have a cost Susannah couldn’t have anticipated. Even her hand betrays her, as Susannah learns that she has a progressive hereditary disease that’s making her fingers cramp and curl—a curse waiting in her genes, legacy of a birth family that gave her little else. As her now-or-never concert draws near, Susannah is catapulted back to memories she’s never been able to purge—and forward, to choices she never thought she would have to make.

Told through the unique perspective of a musician, The Sound Between the Notes draws the reader deeper and deeper into the question Susannah can no longer silence: Who am I, and where do I belong?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647420123
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Barbara Linn Probst is an award-winning author of contemporary women’s fiction living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Each of her novels has been a medalist for prestigious national awards, including the Nautilus Award, the Hawthorne Prize, the Independent Book Publishers Award in both literary and popular fiction, and the Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, for which she was the gold medalist. Barbara’s newest book, Roll the Sun Across the Sky, launches in May 2025.

Barbara has a PhD in clinical social work and is a former researcher, teacher, and therapist. She has conducted workshops for organizations including the Author Learning Center, the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and the Kauai Writers Conference, and has published more than 80 essays on the craft of writing and the writing life. In her spare time, she is a “serious amateur pianist” and an avid traveler to places such as India, Alaska, Spain, Italy, Armenia, and Iceland. Learn more on https://www.barbaralinnprobst.com/

Editorial Reviews

2022 16th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in Women’s Fiction
2021 CIBA Somerset Book Awards First Place Winner
A 2021 Kirkus Reviews' Best Indie Book of the Year

2021 Sarton Book Awards: Gold Medal Winner in Contemporary Women's Fiction


2021 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Finalist

2020 Readers' Favorite Award: Women's Fiction

2020 DaVince Eye Award, Eric Hoffer Awards: Best Cover Design




Praise for The Sound Between the Notes:

“The climax, on the night of her performance, is a tour de force steeped in suspense, and Susannah’s subsequent revelations are satisfying and authentic. A sensitive, astute exploration of artistic passion, family, and perseverance.”
—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED

“The Sound Between the Notes is so beautiful, so lyrical, so musical that it was hard to put down. . . . This is a wonderful story from a skillful writer, one that appeals strongly to the heart. It features awesome characters, a twisty plot, and gorgeous writing.”
—Readers’ Favorite 5-star review

“In her second novel, Barbara Linn Probst delivers yet another powerful story, balancing lyrical language with a skillfully paced plot to build a sensory-rich world that will delight those who loved Queen of the Owls and win countless new readers. Offering a deep exploration of the search for identity and connection, The Sound Between Notes reminds us to embrace everything we are—and everything that’s made us who we are.”
—Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY best-selling author of Perennials

“Family ties can bind or blind us—even with relatives we've never met. In The Sound Between the Notes, trails of music connect generations separated by adoption—while the same notes threaten a family believed sewn with steel threads.In this spellbinding novel, Barbara Linn Probst examines how the truth of love transcends genetics, even as strands of biology grip us. Once you begin this story, suffused with the majesty of music and the reveries of creation, the 'gotta know' will carry you all the way to the final note.”
—Randy Susan Meyers, international best-selling author of Waisted and The Comfort of Lies

“Beautifully told, The Sound Between the Notes, is the story of tragedy and triumph, of the push and pull of family, of the responsibility we feel to ourselves and those we love. Once I started the book, I couldn't put it down until I reached the last, gorgeously written note.”
—Loretta Nyhan, author of The Other Family and Amazon best-seller Digging In

“As soaring as the music it so lovingly describes, poignantly human, and relatable to anyone who’s ever wondered if it’s too late for their dream, The Sound Between the Notes is an exploration of our vulnerability to life’s timing and chance occurrences that influence our decisions, for better or worse. Probst creates her trademark intelligent suspense as Susannah, an adoptee trying for a mid-life resurrection of an abandoned music career, confronts lifelong questions of who she is. A story that speaks to our universal need to have someone who believes in us unequivocally, and how that person had better be ourselves.”
—Ellen Notbohm, award-winning author of The River by Starlight

Praise for Queen of the Owls:

2020 Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award Finalist
2020 IPPY Awards Bronze Winner in Popular Fiction
2020 Eric Hoffer Award 1st Runner up in General Fiction

“A nuanced, insightful, culturally relevant investigation of one woman’s personal and artistic awakening, Queen of the Owls limns the distance between artist and muse, creator and critic, concealment and exposure.”
—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times best-selling author of A Piece of the World and Orphan Train

“This is a stunner about the true cost of creativity, and about what it means to be really seen. Gorgeously written and so, so smart (and how can you resist any novel that has Georgia O’Keeffe in it?), Probst’s novel is a work of art in itself.”
—Caroline Leavitt, best-selling author of Pictures of You, Is This Tomorrow and Cruel Beautiful World

“Probst plumbs the depths of Elizabeth’s desperation with a delicacy that underlines the brutal truths her protagonist must face .... A thought-provoking, introspective examination of self and sexuality”
—Booklist

“Readers will root for Elizabeth—and wince in amusement at her pratfalls—as she strikes out in improbable new directions . . . An entertaining, psychologically rich story of a sometimes giddy, sometimes painful awakening.”
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

★ 2020-12-04
In Probst’s novel, a gifted pianist hopes to restart her career after a long hiatus.

Susannah Lewis willingly sacrificed her concert career to be a mother. Now, her son, James, is a teenager, and she is invited to perform at a gala function that might signal a new beginning. But her little finger is behaving oddly, and she has a couple of tiny nodes on her palm. The diagnosis is Dupuytren’s contracture, a hereditary condition. In time, her gnarled hands may be useless at the keyboard. This is terrifying enough in itself, but Susannah was adopted as a newborn and knows next to nothing about her biological parents. Her search takes her to Texas, where she leaves a wake of emotional mayhem but does learn that she has a younger sister, who may have musical talents of her own. Meanwhile, Susannah looks to find treatment for her rare condition. Her husband, Aaron, however, is a scientific researcher who is by nature very logical and cautious; moreover, he simply can’t understand the anxiety that is plaguing Susannah. Their marriage suffers and may be permanently damaged. Probst writes very well and convincingly. The characters are well drawn and the tight plot is just one agonizing twist after another. Susannah and Aaron fall prey to the old clash between the artistic temperament and the scientific, but the reader does understand them both as well-meaning people. James is a recognizable teenager: a naïve kid one minute, a nascent adult the next. The climax, on the night of her performance, is a tour de force steeped in suspense, and Susannah’s subsequent revelations are satisfying and authentic.

A sensitive, astute exploration of artistic passion, family, and perseverance. (discussion questions, acknowledgement, author bio)

Kirkus Reviews