My new novel ‘What the music asks’ is now available both as a paperback and Kindle to purchase through Amazon.
Book Synopsis
What the Music Asks is a novel about standards, belonging, and the quiet cost of making things easier.
David Robinson has spent years shaping the sound of a parish choir — not through force or charisma, but through attention, clarity, and trust. Under his guidance, the music has learned how to hold itself. Then, gradually, the terms begin to change. Inclusivity is prioritised. Expectations are softened. Decisions are reframed as care. What once required listening and commitment is recast as something that must never feel difficult.
As the church moves towards a different vision of itself, David finds his role subtly altered — still present, still relied upon, but no longer quite allowed to lead. When Sophie Chambers, a singer who understands instinctively what the music once demanded, steps back from the choir, her absence exposes what has already begun to erode. Her return, brief and carefully bounded, makes the cost of that erosion impossible to ignore.
Set over the course of a year and moving towards Christmas, What the Music Asks is a novel about listening — to music, to institutions as they change, and to the moment when fidelity to a craft begins to exert its own demands.
