For fans of Inglath Cooper and Catherine Ryan Hyde, a novel that Publishers Weekly calls “…a wrenching tale of love and loss.” .Even as a violin prodigy, Olivia Klein courted trouble. But when her marriage to high-stakes investor Rob Van Doren takes another wrong turn, Olivia acts out once too often. A night of bad behavior results in community service hours. Time is to be served with Theo … served with Theo McAdams, an inner-city teacher whose passion for music eclipses Olivia’s. As she inches toward a better place, life surprises Olivia in the form of her first husband—baseball legend Sam Nash.
Years ago, Olivia fell in love with Sam. Their impulsive marriage imploded with a fateful car crash and harsh parting words. Olivia never expected to see him again. But now Sam is back, and he wants her forgiveness. He also wants to recapture their volatile love affair. Olivia is torn between rekindling romance and saving her marriage. To her surprise, it’s the presence of the young music teacher—and the lessons from a reckless past—that may bring harmony to Olivia’s off-key life.
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In this masterfully written saga that involves secrets from long ago, Laura Spinella’s UNSTRUNG grabs you from the beginning and doesn’t let you go. Olivia Klein, an accomplished violinist with the New England Symphony has a gift that she’s inherited from her father and grandfather, a gift with which she has never been able to feel completely comfortable. Her life has been turbulent due to choices she made when she was younger. She’s kept secrets from her family, her husband, Rob, and best friend, Sasha. Now a middle-aged woman, those secrets have caught up to her, and the truth needs to be told, even if it costs her everything.
In Chapter One, we find Olivia in court for her drunken, wild actions of taking a bat to Rob’s Porche out of anger due to his poor business decision that could take away their home that’s been in the family for years. Not only is the judge ready to tell her she’s in contempt of court, but when she mouths off to him, he decides she must do 100 hours of community service for her penance. She manages to come up with the idea that she’d like to complete her hours at the Braemore School, a very rough inner-city school, to help Theo McAdams, the new music teacher who lost his father on 9/11.
Sam Nash, former professional baseball legend, who also happens to be Olivia’s first husband, has been battling Leukemia, which is now in remission. As he reflects on his life and past regressions, he decides to show up on Livy’s doorstep to let her know how sorry he was all those years ago, choosing baseball over her. Now with this new admission, all the past decisions and secrets she’s kept to herself are now coming to revisit her.
At first I wasn’t sure about Olivia’s character, thinking she was a tough and nasty woman. Chapter by chapter, her personality reveals itself and I came to embrace her and the decisions she made. She is a loving and philanthropic person, yet I also understood how and why she possesses this anger and rebellious side. Laura Spinella does a fantastic job of pealing layers of Olivia’s personality, and she wove the three main male characters to an ending I was anxiously anticipating. I couldn’t put this book down. I’m definitely ready to read another book by this author.
I didn’t think I was going to like this book. It started out badly but got better. One thing I thought was a bore was how the author went on and on about how Olivia was this gifted violinist…. yet she didn’t seem to finish anything she started! I found that very hard to believe in this story but I went with it. None the less the storyline about being Theo’s biological mother (and knew it from the beginning was another far fetched tale) was what saved the book. The ending though left me confused! Not sure who the father of the baby is now???