Julia Ansdell is a violinist who has recently purchased sheet music that she found in a shop in Rome. The music is entitled "Incendio" by L. Todesco, a composer she has never heard of. The music is haunting. When Julia plays it, she blacks out only to awaken and learn that her three-year-old daughter has stabbed her with a piece of broken glass. Is her daughter possessed? Or is the music causing her to act out?

This story is told in two timelines. We are in the present with Julia who is afraid her daughter is trying to kill her. The other story is set in WWII Italy. Lorenzo Todesco works in his father's music shop, designing priceless instruments. He and his family are forced onto a train by Nazi soldiers and sent to a death camp in Poland. We learn about their lives and the horrors of the Holocaust.

The first half of this book was very disjointed. I thought Julia's story was interesting and I wasn't sure where it was going. At first, I couldn't figure out how Lorenzo's story tied into the present. It seemed to drag the story down and I was ready to give up on this book. I stuck with it and the plot and pacing did improve. Still, I wasn't a fan of the ending of the book. I guess this one just wasn't for me. My rating: 2.5 Stars.

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