Crescendo

Reviews / Votes

An enthralling literary symphony of ambition, desire, and obsession, Jane Healey's Crescendo captures the creative and destructive power of art with prose so immersive you'll feel like you're watching an Oscar-worthy film play in your head -- Layne Fargo, author of THE FAVOURITES An enormous pleasure to read - a thrilling, claustrophobic, passionate study of ambition, neurosis and desire that really sucked me in. And I loved the setting too, it made me want to go on holiday somewhere glamorous so the view matched the writing -- Bridget Collins, author of THE NAKED LIGHT I couldn't tear myself away from this captivating, heady novel that draws a taut string between the needs of the flesh and the demands of art. The literary love triangle between Max, Natasha and Henri joins the exalted ranks of The Great Gatsby and Brideshead Revisited -- Erin Kelly, author of THE SKELETON KEY A riveting study in pressure - artistic, romantic, and familial - set within the rarefied world of 1950s French concert halls and ballet. Jane Healey renders ambition and rivalry with remarkable psychological acuity, illuminating the quiet compromises and irreversible choices that shape a life devoted to genius -- Lara Prescott, author of THE SECRETS WE KEPT This stylish, passionate novel transports you to the gilded salons and concert halls of 1950s Paris, with two gorgeous twins, a count, and a dancer who each make big moves and mistakes for love. But the book's greatest question revolves around genius - how to grow it, to keep it, to not lose everything for its sake - and every page in Crescendo builds to its haunting and resounding answer -- Maria Hummel, author of STILL LIVES Phenomenal and compulsive, a simmering tale of sibling rivalry and the heady world of classical music. It is really a love story, a love of music, a love of siblings, a love of life. The prose was tender, sexy even and most importantly precise: as accomplished as a virtuoso pianist playing a sonata. I found the ending unexpected and bruising. Terrific -- Molly Aitken, author of BRIGHT I BURN A delicious unravelling of complicated siblings in the most sumptuous of settings, I devoured it -- Anna Bailey, author of OUR LAST WILD DAYS A heady and intoxicating tale of rivalry and obsession, talent and envy, desire and destruction - Crescendo set me ablaze -- Kat Dunn, author of HUNGERSTONE Sumptuous and intoxicating, a ravishing novel of gilded lives, classical music, artistic obsession, and the destructive pull of sibling rivalry - a perfect summer read -- Rachel Blackmore, author of COSTANZA Crescendo is the perfect title for this book, not only because it revolves around a brilliant pianist, but because the story builds, slowly, grippingly, leaving you breathless with every new revelation, heart beating in your ears until the explosive ending. Then, on the final page, it offers a beautiful note of hope. Healey is an artist -- Carinn Jade, author of ASTROLOGY HOUSE