Reviewed by Chris & Kat

TITLE:  Imperfect Harmony

AUTHOR:  Jay Northcote

PUBLISHER:  Jaybird Press

LENGTH:  189 pages

RELEASE DATE:  April 15, 2016

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Imperfect harmony can still be beautiful…

John Fletcher, a former musician, is stuck in limbo after losing his long-term partner two years ago. He’s shut himself off from everything that reminds him of what he’s lost. When his neighbour persuades him to join the local community choir, John rediscovers his love of music and finds a reason to start living again.

Rhys Callington, the talented and charismatic choir leader, captures John’s attention from the first moment they meet. He appears to be the polar opposite of John: young, vibrant, and full of life. But Rhys has darkness in his own past that is holding him back from following his dreams.

Despite the nineteen-year age gap, the two men grow close and a fragile relationship blossoms. Ghosts of the past and insecurities about the future threaten their newfound happiness. If they’re going to harmonise in life and love as they do in their music, they’ll need to start following the same score.

CHRIS’ REVIEW

Still reeling from the loss of his partner and lover, John Fletcher never expected to find love again. Not so soon, and not with someone so much younger than him. But when he escorts his elderly neighbor to her weekly choir practice, he is immediately taken by the young and extremely talented choir leader, Rhys Callington. With bright hair and a magnetic presence, it is no wonder that John found himself looking at Rhys, but it is surprising that he finds himself not wanting to leave. Even if music, in all its forms, is still something that tears his heart in two.

Unable to leave Rhys’s presence before he has to, John stays. And sings. And feels music move him for the first time in many years. That it also moved him to tears was really only to be expected. What was not was the crazy desire to come back. To see more of Rhys, to feel more of the music. With each encounter John can’t help but want more, even though he knows how this will end. How all things, including songs, must end. But there is just something about Rhys that makes him feel wild enough to chase after the songs, even when he knows the notes are all doomed to fade.

Jay Northcote has once again got me hooked. I loved this book. From the wonderful way music was weaved into the story, to the age-defying romance between John and Rhys, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

Very few stories are able to use music well enough to make me feel it. Most of the time I either don’t have the requisite cultural music background to understand what is being said, or the music never peals itself off the page to become something of note. Not here. The author was able to let me actually enjoy that part of the story fully, without it becoming either a distraction or a disappointment. I loved the parts of this book where John and Rhys sing and/or play. I like how music is used to tie them together, to tie their old lives into their new ones. I liked how I could feel the music even if I could never hear it. It really brought this story to life for me.

With how different Rhys and John are you’d think it’d be a bit of a hard sell for them as a couple. They have over a decade of age between them. One is a rather homebody school teacher, the other is vibrant singer/song-writer (who was once the life of the party till the party ended up killing a part of him). But where they are different, they are also a lot alike. They are both struggling to come back from heartbreaking grief. They both feel ripped from their dreams and the paths they were so sure of. They both are reluctant to try again. It is the meshing of their differences and their commonalities that makes it work. John shows Rhys how to dream again, and Rhys shows John how to trust in those dreams.

I found their story entirely gripping, even as it was rather simple. There are no grand action scenes here, no last-minute rushes to the airport to (be tackled to the ground by the TSA as they try to) declare their undying love. It was just simply give and take. Trust and hope. Love and knowing that sometimes it is the imperfections that make the song unique and worthy of remembering. It may have been simple, but it was also strong.

CHRIS’ RATING:  

KAT’S REVIEW

I have been wanting to try my first Jay Northcote novel but have been so busy I hadn’t got around to it. So, when Imperfect Harmony came up for review I jumped for it. But, I was a half a second too late, story of my life. However, my gracious fellow reviewer, Chris, allowed me to be part of a duo review for this and I was so excited. Then I got a bit nervous. I mean, I was reviewing with a seasoned reviewer but I am so glad I let my nerves go by the wayside and went with this.

Being in the more mature portion of my life, I totally got the whole “I’m too old for Rhys” feeling. He is at the beginning of his young life, but was he really? Death of a loved one is always hard but losing your partner in a tragic way is inconceivable and heartbreaking. And it changes you, matures the young beyond their years. Both these two men both have suffered such a traumatic loss in their recent lives so they completely understood what the other had been living through. I got how John never wanted to hold Rhys back from experiencing it all but Rhys is an adult and perfectly capable of making mature, thoughtful and serious decisions. John might be older, but age doesn’t always make a difference, and it didn’t at all in this story.

I loved how music wove in and out through out this story. Both men are accomplished singers and musicians. And both gave up a part of their love of music, in different ways, when they journeyed down the dark road of depression and guilt, when they had to go on without their mates. Music brought them together and then the chemistry took over. Was it all hearts and roses, No! They both carried a lot of baggage from their previous relationships and it was a struggle to watch them try and move on. I loved how Rhys, although the nineteen–year junior of John and much smaller in stature to the “bear” of a man, finally took the lead and put it all out there! I wanted to smack John up side the head a few time and tell him to wake up! But Maggie, John’s wonderful neighbor, did that for me.

I truly enjoyed the side characters in this book, Maggie, Rhys mom and his gran. Going on the visits to Beech House, a retirement home, were some of my favorite parts. I loved that a young man would take time each week to go and make the senior citizen’s time enjoyable. So sweet and endearing. And that is what this book was for me, endearing. It wasn’t fast paced. It did have the sex scenes but that isn’t what I found the most appealing although they were quite enjoyable. It was that two men, so emotionally scarred, could find each other and help the other come back to the land of the living instead of just going through the paces. The author did a great job of weaving all the characters together to make you care what happened and how they could support the main characters. I will warn you, it is written with a lot of British words that I was unfamiliar with, but it is set there so it makes sense. Luckily for me, I have an app, that translates them to more familiar American words, so I understood what she was writing, but that was just me. Imperfect Harmony was a story that I am glad I got the chance to read. Jay Northcote took us along with her as she leads these two imperfect men to discover a future life after tragedy and she did it so incredibly well.

KAT’S RATING:  

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