TRIED AS SILVER

Stark’s 19th-century violinist proceeds to London for her final act in this, the third in a trilogy of historical novels.

After two decades in Paris, famed British-born American violinist Emily de Koningh (nee Alden) and her family are relocating to London. She isn’t quite looking forward to returning to the land of her birth or to her father, Lord Alden, who sent her to be raised by his best friend in New York. Some of her reservations are personal. Her open marriage to her childhood sweetheart, Corey de Koningh, is variable at best, and her sons—the sullen, politically inclined William and the artistic Connie, rumored to be gay—have just reached adulthood. Other reservations are professional. “I no longer get the lift of joy from playing before an audience, no matter how beautiful the music is,” she tells Corey. “Something is missing for me, and I suppose I’m afraid if I go to England now, I’ll never find it again.” There is a new energy in London’s music scene, however, where the Royal College of Music was recently founded to compete with the storied conservatories of the Continent. Are Emily’s prospects about to experience a similar renaissance, or is her fragile ensemble of friends, relatives, and lovers about to disband for good? Stark’s novel displays a depth of research and command of history. Emily and company are joined by real figures from the period, including Royal College of Music founder Charles Villiers Stanford and Austrian socialite Pauline von Metternich. The history isn’t always injected seamlessly into the story, however, and the dialogue, in particular, can be awkwardly expositional: “You can get inoculated against smallpox, William,” Emily chides her son. “This is the 1880s, remember. The vaccine has been in use successfully for decades!” The novel seems to function mostly as a vehicle for the author’s interest in the period, and the plot is thin. The stakes are never high enough to give Emily’s ennui much meaning, and the period’s musical upheavals, however momentous, are not terribly dramatic on the page.

A detailed but slightly flat historical novel.