Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay (Giveaway Included)

Synopsis From Back Cover:

On a Boston street one warm spring day, Hazel and Remy spot each other for the first time in years.  Under ordinary circumstances, this meeting might seem insignificant.  But Remy, a gifted violinist, is married to the composer Nicholas Elko - once the love of Hazel's life.

It has been twenty years since Remy, then an ambitious conservatory student; Nicholas, a wunderkind struggling with a masterwork he cannot fully realize; and his wife, the beautiful and fragile Hazel, first came together and tipped their collective world on it's axis.  But as their entwined stories unfold from 1987 to 2007, from Europe to America, from conservatory life to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, each will discover the surprising ways in which the quest to create something real and true - be it a work of art or one's own life - can lead to the most personal of revelations, including the unearthing of secrets we keep, even from ourselves.

I'm a pretty picky reader.  I know what I like, and I definitely know what I do not.  I will rarely agree to read a historical fiction book, mainly because the misses have vastly outnumbered the home runs.  The same goes for what some would consider family drama fiction.  I know that's not the proper term for what I'm talking about, but I hope you get the point.  It's that segment of literature that focuses on one family, normally over a extended period of time.  The book will detail, sometimes in painful detail, their travails and successes.  It will put their relationships, both internally and externally, under a microscope that can make a mote of dust look like HAT-P-1.

For whatever reason, I rarely ever get into this type of book.  I'm not sure what it is, but I tend to find myself nodding off half way through a paragraph, drool running down my chin.  The only reason I was interested in reading Sight Reading, was because of the author.  I read Russian Winter by her back in 2011, and despite it being in a genre I normally don't like, I ended up really enjoying it.  I figured it would be nice to see if lightning could strike twice.  And while you normally don't want to get struck by lightning even once, I'm glad Daphne Kalotay was able to do it twice for me.

Where I would normally find such a story to be plodding and tedious, Daphne Kalotay is able to keep the pacing at a fairly decent rate, without sacrificing the story or the character development.  There wasn't even a page or two where the story started to bog down and turn into molasses.  Part of her talent lies in creating such wonderfully complex characters, that you fall in love with them so much, you don't really pay attention to the rate at which their lives are being altered or stuck in a rut.  I may not be saying all of this that well, but I hope you get my meaning.

Not only was I not bored by the lives of Hazel, Remy, or Nicholas; I wanted more of it.  I would have gladly read another few hundred pages of their lives as they revolved around each other and those close to them.  I wanted to see what happened after the wedding.  I want to be able to check in with them, years after the events in this book.  I want to know that they will continue to evolve and keep together as what can only be described as a true family.  I would love to be able to invite them over for tea.  But since I can't, I'll settle for rereading this book at a later point in time.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book.  Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.

The wonderful group at TLC Book Tours have generously offered my readers the chance to win a copy of this book for themselves.  The giveaway will last until 11:59 pm, CST, on 6/7/13.  You must be a resident of the United States to enter, and all you have to do is leave me a comment with your email address.