The Enchanted Sonata Review - A Captivating Read Filled with Whimsical Charm

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Category: Books

Published on Saturday, 08 December 2018 09:08

Written by Janet Walker

The Enchanted Sonata, from Heather Dixon Wallwork, and published by The Wallworkshop, brings to life the holiday classic The Nutcracker Ballet adding a musical twist as the timeless tale is gently modernized with a young girls aspirations.

"I have always wanted to re-tell The Nutcracker but with music as the magical force," Dixon Wallwork says, who was the story lead on Disney's Moana playset. "Combining this timeless tale with my passion for music is a dream come true, and I hope readers will be able to experience The Nutcracker with fresh eyes and a renewed passion for the magic that music brings to all our lives."

The Enchanted Sonata begins with a prelude asking a simple and nearly undefinable question: "What makes music magic?"

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The following five paragraphs begin the journey into the magical world, so well known two notes often conjure up memories of first times whisking memoires in quick flashes across the mind. Our author, a classically trained pianist and flutist, now in character revels a learned opinion.

A Mother's lullaby, a love song, a snare drum, a songs of worship, light chords, staccato piano, pizzicato strings, minor legato melodies all play with the heart strings, invoking memories that uplift or sadden and move the mind to a special place.

"The power of music," she says, as she writes of three composers who were able to come close, "Kuzenetsov, Vasiliev, and Yelchin all composed brilliant songs and operettas and orchestrations that had fascinated and enthralled audiences. They were almost there. But no composer was as good as he was," she write alluding to the Johann Kahler, the most famous, exquisite, talented pianist Clara had ever heard.

Over the next 375 pages we are treated to an delightful and captivating narrative, the details of the characters which are never presented during the traditional presentation of The Nutcracker Ballet.

We meet Clara Stahlbaum, 15, had her future perfectly planned: marry the handsome pianist, Johann, and settle down to a life full of music, but all that changes when she receives a mysterious and magical nutcracker.

Taken on an ingenious adventure fueled by the hidden passions of a young girls imagination, when sleep carries her far away, into a captivating fairy-tale.

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An enchanted empire of beautiful palaces, fickle fairies, enormous rates and a prince, complete with intrigue, mystery, magical powers, where toy soldiers talk, and a magician who uses music as magioc, and what is familiar has disappeared and the unfamiliar bounces to life.

The Enchanted Sonata is told int he first person voice of Clara. Her secret passions for Master Johann, the renown pianist, and she reminds us of the first crush, as she hangs on his every word, hoping her mastery of the most complex pieces will bring his attention and, more, his affection her way.

Unprepared for the competitiveness of the male ego, her skills so advanced she, unwittingly and unknowingly and unfortunately would have stopped practicing if she had known he would consider her a threat, that he would see her as his rival.

Our dear Clara is stuck now, in an world where everyone seems to know her name and yet she is at a loss as she begins this passage. As she wakes, she believes, the room had suddenly evaporated into the night air with the furniture caught up in a whirling cloud, the floor soft, the remnants of her room, her life, gone and replaced with a forest and the toy solider that caused her to lose her single-minded and patterned thoughts.

With her only help, the now eight foot wooden toy solider, who can talks, she imparts on journey that takes her to far away worlds and at each challenge she is given the tools to overcomes the obstacle and learns many anecdotes that become tools in a backpack.

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The Enchanted Sonata, is Dixon Wallwork's third novel with the first two, Entwined and Illusionarium published by Greenwillow Books, a division of Harper Collins. A classically trained pianist she also plays the flute, which allow her to create artistically engaging characters.

The Enchanted Sonata is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and through other major retailers.