Philip Cross: Chapter 18 left me trembling. Grace standing at the doorway, her violin in hand, not yet ready to play that image has haunted me for days. Jan Notzon writes silence better than most writers write sound. Every moment in that chapter pulses with held breath.

When he writes, “The bow trembled like a hand on the edge of prayer,” I had to stop and reread it. That’s not just beautiful prose it’s empathy turned into music.
As someone who’s lived through grief, I understood what it means to hold beauty and pain in the same breath. Grace’s hesitation to play again felt like my own hesitation to trust life again after loss.

Jan, this chapter alone made me a lifelong reader of your work. You reminded me that healing doesn’t come with noise it comes quietly, like a string trembling back to life