The Moonlit Garden

The Moonlit Garden by Corina Bomann
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was provided to me as a free Kindle pre-release through Amazon Prime.


This book is an English translation from German. There are rough spots as a reader fumbles through poor word choices, however I felt these to be few and far between and not distracting from the story itself.

The story begins with a prologue before the true action starts. I felt the prologue was unnecessary as the mystery of a stranger giving the violin to the main (present day) character to be hook enough.

The romance between the main characters (past and present) were flimsy at best. Passionately in love with a guy she spent minimal amount of time with over a week or two? I didn't find it romantic at all.

The story itself was riveting. Beautiful locations and culture, plenty of historical information as well as entertainment. Once I got through the first 80 pages, I couldn't put the book down (seriously, I got up an hour early one day to make sure I had time to read).



Summary:
Lilly Kaiser had come to terms with her solitary, uncomplicated life after becoming a young widow. So when a stranger delivers an old violin to her Berlin antiques shop and tells Lilly it belongs to her, she’s completely bewildered. Why should she be the one to inherit such an exquisite instrument?
Together with her best friend, Ellen, and handsome musicologist Gabriel Thornton, Lilly sets out to explore the violin’s legacy. From England to Italy to Indonesia, she follows its winding trail. Along the way, she learns of Rose Gallway, a beautiful woman of English and Sumatran descent who lived among Sumatra’s lush gardens more than a hundred years earlier. A celebrated and sought-after musician, Rose once owned Lilly’s violin and regularly played concerts for Sumatra’s colonial elite—until, one day, she simply disappeared.
As Lilly unravels the mystery behind Rose’s story—and uncovers other unexpected secrets—she’ll come to see her own life in an entirely new light. And as each shared discovery brings her closer to Gabriel, her heart might finally break its long-held silence.