Customer Reviews

The Sound of Blue

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The characters in Ms. Payne's second novel, The Sound of Blue, are more compelling and intriguing than her first book, The Virgin's Knot. She focuses on the sadness and connectedness between lost souls: people searching for parts of themselves that are repressed, lost or waiting to be discovered. Her strong use of description and metaphor helps the reader look inward and contemplate his/her own life's searches.

After reading The Virgin's Knot, I couldn't wait for Holly Payne's second book to arrive. In the beginning you can almost feel the puszta air around you as you get to know the main character Sara and Payne skillfully parallels the unknowns of the night in a turbulent place in time with the mysteries of Sara's past. The depth of description of towns in Croatia and Hungary brings you into a not-so-distant war that many people still struggle with, and Payne does a great job of exploring this through the characters. Perhaps the best aspect is the spirit of the Balkans, which you can feel throughout the novel. The only thing that could have made the book better would have been reading it sitting on the castle wall at Dubrovnik. Maybe next time around.

Having spent some time as a volunteer at refugee camp in Hungary, I was intrigued by Holly Payne's ability to articulate the emotions of those who have had to call these places home. Her words brought back memories of my own observations and interactions in a way that was amazingly insightful and accurate. I appreciate her efforts to bring depth and connection to the often anonymous faces that we see on TV and shed light on the deep contrast between the rich vibrant culture of the Balkans and the horrors that tore this region apart in the late twentieth century.

"The Sound of Blue" is the best book I have read in quite a long time. The characters are intensely vivid and the storyline masterfully weaves together the lives of three people who were brought together by the horrific conflict in Yugoslavia. I feel like I have made a short visit to this seemingly beautiful part of the world without actually traveling there. "The Sound of Blue" brings whole knew meaning to the word "refuge" and provides a reality check on the individual burdens that our senseless wars create. This book will stay in my thoughts for quite a long time...

I am looking forward to reading more Holly Payne novels.

Holly Payne's new novel "The Sound of Blue" is a haunting rumination on love, loss, and the healing power of music and memory. It is also a stark, candid exploration of the toll of war on the human spirit.

Set during the Balkan conflict, Payne skillfully interweaves the tale of an American girl's quest for redemption, a boy's courage in the face of the unspeakable, and a musician's need for meaning in a chaotic, often brutal world. With a rare talent for painting colors into what Americans have most often seen as a black and white static on the television, Payne avoids the easy answer in favor of the larger question, and thus offers us characters who define the true complexity of what it means to be human.

Both sublime and heart-wrenching, illumined by a rare insight into the chambers of the soul by a mistress of the word, THE SOUND OF BLUE challenges us to remember, and by remembering, to never forget.

Another fabulous book by Holly Payne - can't wait for the next one!! The characters and locations in The Sound of Blue come to life so vividely and clearly. I truly feel like I've learned something about a place and time in the world I knew nothing about.

Holly Payne has created a completely self-absorbed and unlikable protagonist. Continually equating Sarah's troubles with those of the refugees is equally offensive and ridiculous. Furthermore, many of the sentences lack any intelligible structure and must be read repeatedly, not because of their profundity but because of their disregard for the rules of grammer. The same can be said for the story line itself, and the side steps into forced, overly poetical musings only make matters worse. Such a difficult topic as this deserved to be treated with more respect.

Good plot, bad writing. Did she ever take writing classes herself? Did she ever hear of "show, don't tell"? Too, too precious at times!