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Sonata Form
Love, and war—and dragons!
"A sweet standalone romantic fantasy... richly imagined." -- Publisher's Weekly
Old Forge is known for its dragons—savage little things, more singe than snarl—and Milo Priddy is known for his way with them. When rumblings of conflict appear on the horizon, the dragons start to disappear. Milo is dragonkin, and knows what he must do. It is an uneasy choice, and one he dares not reveal even to his lover, Ellis.
As leader of neighbouring Wellech, Ellis has his own hard choices. His skills are crucial to a secure homeland. More and more, the homeland he and Milo once hoped to share is under threat--not only from outside, but within.
For their own people are sowing mistrust of the magic users, seeding a betrayal of not only the dragons, but their kin.
"A sweet standalone romantic fantasy... richly imagined." -- Publisher's Weekly
Old Forge is known for its dragons—savage little things, more singe than snarl—and Milo Priddy is known for his way with them. When rumblings of conflict appear on the horizon, the dragons start to disappear. Milo is dragonkin, and knows what he must do. It is an uneasy choice, and one he dares not reveal even to his lover, Ellis.
As leader of neighbouring Wellech, Ellis has his own hard choices. His skills are crucial to a secure homeland. More and more, the homeland he and Milo once hoped to share is under threat--not only from outside, but within.
For their own people are sowing mistrust of the magic users, seeding a betrayal of not only the dragons, but their kin.
419 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 29, 2021
6 people are currently reading
200 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 29, 2021
A Joyfully Jay review.
5 stars
Sonata Form features an alternate Wales where magic (and dragons) exist side by side with trains, cars, rifles, and motion pictures. It’s also a story that deals with war not from the front lines, but the hard fought slug fests of coastal cities fighting off invasions. It also takes a look at the suspicion, hatred, and violence that can be and has been turned on people who are from a different place, speak a different language, or look different than how they’re ‘supposed’ to look. This may not be subject matter everyone finds comfortable, but there is a clear line drawn between good and evil, and in this world, treating people as less-than simply because they’re not like you is an evil that needs to be faced and vanquished.
The writing in this book is prose heavy, but well-written, florid prose, walking a perfect line between evocative and lyrical without ever feeling forced or overwrought.
Read Elizabeth’s review in its entirety here.
5 stars
Sonata Form features an alternate Wales where magic (and dragons) exist side by side with trains, cars, rifles, and motion pictures. It’s also a story that deals with war not from the front lines, but the hard fought slug fests of coastal cities fighting off invasions. It also takes a look at the suspicion, hatred, and violence that can be and has been turned on people who are from a different place, speak a different language, or look different than how they’re ‘supposed’ to look. This may not be subject matter everyone finds comfortable, but there is a clear line drawn between good and evil, and in this world, treating people as less-than simply because they’re not like you is an evil that needs to be faced and vanquished.
The writing in this book is prose heavy, but well-written, florid prose, walking a perfect line between evocative and lyrical without ever feeling forced or overwrought.
Read Elizabeth’s review in its entirety here.
dnf
February 18, 2021DNF 22%
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Firstly, thanks Goodreads for loosing the bulk of my review draft. I just don't have the energy to reconstruct it so here's what you get:
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I wanted so much to like this. It's right up my alley. But this author and I just can’t seem to meet in the middle. I gave up on her Blue on Black at 33% for similar reasons:
January 8, 2016 – 33.0% "This was hard to stick with at first. I don't like the tense it's written in. Feels clumsy. Finally got used to it. Getting interesting." But I set it down and walked away six days later.
While tense wasn't an issue in Sonata Form, the prose lacked cadence and was a jumbled mess for me. There were times the narrative flowed beautifully, but I had to reread many passages. It wasn't enough to salvage the book for me. Finally gave up and walked away. I feel badly about this as Cummings is a talented author much loved by many spec fic and fantasy readers.
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Firstly, thanks Goodreads for loosing the bulk of my review draft. I just don't have the energy to reconstruct it so here's what you get:
---
I wanted so much to like this. It's right up my alley. But this author and I just can’t seem to meet in the middle. I gave up on her Blue on Black at 33% for similar reasons:
January 8, 2016 – 33.0% "This was hard to stick with at first. I don't like the tense it's written in. Feels clumsy. Finally got used to it. Getting interesting." But I set it down and walked away six days later.
While tense wasn't an issue in Sonata Form, the prose lacked cadence and was a jumbled mess for me. There were times the narrative flowed beautifully, but I had to reread many passages. It wasn't enough to salvage the book for me. Finally gave up and walked away. I feel badly about this as Cummings is a talented author much loved by many spec fic and fantasy readers.
March 11, 2021
This book has unique, engaging worldbuilding and two main characters I grew very attached to. And dragons. It ends up pretty intense, as war spills over the land, but not as emotionally dark as it might have been, through the choices of POV.
It was a little slow for me to get into. The author uses some novel words for familiar things (like "tad" for dad, which threw me on first encountering it since "tad" is a word for a young boy, and so I thought it was a son rather than a father. Or "nain" for grandmother.) This adds to the fantasy setting but also makes the beginning of the story more work to get through. Stick with it, though, because the second half the book becomes deeply engaging and hard to put down.
In this world, dragons exist as dangerous mostly-wild animals. The majority of people see them flying high overhead, a wonder but not part of their familiar world. But a few are dragon-kin, and they work in preserves where weary, injured, or off-course dragons may stop to rest, heal, and refuel (with coal and smelted metals for their internal fires, and sheep and cows for their stomachs.)
Milo is dragon-kin, like his nain before him. He's one of the few left in his part of the world, which has become less hospitable to magic-workers in recent years. He loves the dragons, and cares for them, and they let him without frying him or eating him. And his skill is going to tie him to the dragon preserve his nain cared for, probably for the rest of his life. Which means that although he reconnects with Ellis, his childhood best friend and other half, and finds that the friendship has become something potentially deeper now, they live too far apart and have too many responsibilities to really be together.
Ellis is now the leader of the Wardens in his local area, and in a constant battle with his tad, a social leader from whom he wrested some of the power. His tad is a bigot, and a man whose spite at Ellis's mother - a woman who chose to bear his son, but not marry him or live with him - has twisted him in dark ways. Ellis can't afford to leave his post to spend time with Milo, because his tad will be undermining him immediately behind his back.
But Ellis realizes that his love for Milo has changed from a boy's friendship to a deep want, and he's determined to fit in some kind of romance between the demands on both of them. Unfortunately, bigotry is growing. War is brewing. And there may come a time when the needs of the many have to outweigh the needs of the two.
There is some sweetness and humor in the romance between these two men, to offset the darkness of the plot. The unfamiliar terms and the cast of secondary characters became smoother sailing as I read on. The drama was intense without becoming melodrama. The ending was satisfying without being too sweet or wiping out the pain that came before it. I will reread this, and it may well be five stars when I go into it without as much to assimilate and figure out at the start.
It was a little slow for me to get into. The author uses some novel words for familiar things (like "tad" for dad, which threw me on first encountering it since "tad" is a word for a young boy, and so I thought it was a son rather than a father. Or "nain" for grandmother.) This adds to the fantasy setting but also makes the beginning of the story more work to get through. Stick with it, though, because the second half the book becomes deeply engaging and hard to put down.
In this world, dragons exist as dangerous mostly-wild animals. The majority of people see them flying high overhead, a wonder but not part of their familiar world. But a few are dragon-kin, and they work in preserves where weary, injured, or off-course dragons may stop to rest, heal, and refuel (with coal and smelted metals for their internal fires, and sheep and cows for their stomachs.)
Milo is dragon-kin, like his nain before him. He's one of the few left in his part of the world, which has become less hospitable to magic-workers in recent years. He loves the dragons, and cares for them, and they let him without frying him or eating him. And his skill is going to tie him to the dragon preserve his nain cared for, probably for the rest of his life. Which means that although he reconnects with Ellis, his childhood best friend and other half, and finds that the friendship has become something potentially deeper now, they live too far apart and have too many responsibilities to really be together.
Ellis is now the leader of the Wardens in his local area, and in a constant battle with his tad, a social leader from whom he wrested some of the power. His tad is a bigot, and a man whose spite at Ellis's mother - a woman who chose to bear his son, but not marry him or live with him - has twisted him in dark ways. Ellis can't afford to leave his post to spend time with Milo, because his tad will be undermining him immediately behind his back.
But Ellis realizes that his love for Milo has changed from a boy's friendship to a deep want, and he's determined to fit in some kind of romance between the demands on both of them. Unfortunately, bigotry is growing. War is brewing. And there may come a time when the needs of the many have to outweigh the needs of the two.
There is some sweetness and humor in the romance between these two men, to offset the darkness of the plot. The unfamiliar terms and the cast of secondary characters became smoother sailing as I read on. The drama was intense without becoming melodrama. The ending was satisfying without being too sweet or wiping out the pain that came before it. I will reread this, and it may well be five stars when I go into it without as much to assimilate and figure out at the start.
March 4, 2021
Sonata Form
By Carole Cummings
Published by Forest Path Books, 2020
Five stars
As it happens, this is not my first Carole Cummings book, I read her novel “The Queen’s Librarian” in 2013, but my review was both enthusiastic and really unhelpful. I called that earlier novel an “almost-five-star” book. No idea why it missed that final star, which is why I’m rereading it (unprecedented for me).
“Sonata Form” gets a solid five-star review. Carole Cummings is, simply, a wonderful writer. Her command of the language is superb, and she weaves a complicated narrative that is both all-embracing and emotionally charged. That complex storyline might be the justification for the mildly puzzling title and chapter headings—all of which refer to musical forms. Because of my one prep-school class in music appreciation fifty years ago, I am an expert, of course, and understood all the chapter headings. Other than the parallel notion of a narrative and a sonata both being complex things, these musical titles do refer to the fact that one of the two main characters, Milo Priddy, plays the violin.
To dragons.
Ah, and there it is. The dragons. I’ve read quite a few books with dragons, treated in a surprisingly wide variety of ways. I’ve never seen them treated this way: as if dragons are large, intelligent, unwieldy and often hard-to-manage wild animals. Not monsters. Not cattle. Beautiful and enigmatic. (Apologies for another aside here: a year ago, before the pandemic, I managed to sneak in a ten-day safari in East Africa, and saw, close-up, giraffes and elephant herds. Suddenly, dragons as animals make sense to me.) Dragons are, however, magical creatures as well, and it takes special humans to care for them on their long migrations across the world, both to keep them healthy, and to keep the human population safe. Milo Priddy is one of these special humas. He is dragonkin. Dragons like him, trust him, and come to him when they need his help.
Even in Milo’s own world, the island nation of Kymbrygh in the United Preidynig Isles, in the continent of Mastiran, Milo is a rarity. His best childhood friend, indeed the lifelong chum who loves him, Ellis Morgan, is fascinated and puzzled by Milo’s gift. Because Milo is Dewin, one of three kinds of magical humans in the world, and the only magical humans who can manage dragons.
Milo and Ellis are young, let’s say fresh out of university young. They reconnect when Milo attends his first coven in Wellech, the largest metropolitan center of Kymbrygh. Although childhood friends, whose mothers remain close friends, Milo and Ellis haven’t seen each other for years. Only because Milo is accosted by two of Wellech’s wardens (police), does he encounter Ellis again. The spark is instant.
However, because we are so distracted by this chance meeting of old friends, we might only pay half-attention to the fact that Milo is singled out as a threat because he’s Dewin. For all his family’s high status in the country, it is this detail that makes him an object of fear and suspicion. To use the author’s musical metaphor, this is a motif that will run through the book, getting louder and more insistent, changing Milo and Ellis’s lives in ways they cannot imagine.
J.R.R. Tolkien always denied that his epic trilogy had anything to do with World War II, but he created a genre of fiction that has been revered and imitated ever since. The good-vs-evil paradigm is an ancient one in literature, and it is inevitable that authors will draw on their own world, their own knowledge, to create settings and characters that connect with them and their readers. Such is the case with “Sonata Form.” As the story unfolded, and I began to obsessively study the maps supplied by the author, I realized that Cummings seemed to be intentionally setting up a Lord of the Rings kind of epic tale of war between good and evil. It was easy to see a parallel with the events surrounding both world wars in Europe. On the other hand, the singling out of the Dewin people seems specifically echoing events in Germany in the 1930s. The broader theme (another musical term!) of anti-immigrant bias throughout the story resonates with our here and now in 2021—both in the Brexit mess in the United Kingdom, and in the virulent anti-immigration politics of the USA’s recently former president and his minions.
So, a lot to take in, especially if you’re stuck at home in a pandemic and have lots of time to think about Carole Cummings and the musical structure of her narrative. It gets very dark, this story, although Cummings relieves the darkness with moments of poetic beauty that left me with tears in my eyes and my heart pounding—more than once. Milo and Ellis are transformed by their love at first, then transformed by war and duty. This is not cozy romance. This is violent and difficult and thought-provoking. But it is still, thankfully, romance.
I’ll just leave it there, with a final quotation from near the end of the book, referring to the dragons, who matter a great deal: “All you have to do is love them. […] Love them like Milo does. And then they’ll know.” When you read this passage in context, you’ll know, too.
By Carole Cummings
Published by Forest Path Books, 2020
Five stars
As it happens, this is not my first Carole Cummings book, I read her novel “The Queen’s Librarian” in 2013, but my review was both enthusiastic and really unhelpful. I called that earlier novel an “almost-five-star” book. No idea why it missed that final star, which is why I’m rereading it (unprecedented for me).
“Sonata Form” gets a solid five-star review. Carole Cummings is, simply, a wonderful writer. Her command of the language is superb, and she weaves a complicated narrative that is both all-embracing and emotionally charged. That complex storyline might be the justification for the mildly puzzling title and chapter headings—all of which refer to musical forms. Because of my one prep-school class in music appreciation fifty years ago, I am an expert, of course, and understood all the chapter headings. Other than the parallel notion of a narrative and a sonata both being complex things, these musical titles do refer to the fact that one of the two main characters, Milo Priddy, plays the violin.
To dragons.
Ah, and there it is. The dragons. I’ve read quite a few books with dragons, treated in a surprisingly wide variety of ways. I’ve never seen them treated this way: as if dragons are large, intelligent, unwieldy and often hard-to-manage wild animals. Not monsters. Not cattle. Beautiful and enigmatic. (Apologies for another aside here: a year ago, before the pandemic, I managed to sneak in a ten-day safari in East Africa, and saw, close-up, giraffes and elephant herds. Suddenly, dragons as animals make sense to me.) Dragons are, however, magical creatures as well, and it takes special humans to care for them on their long migrations across the world, both to keep them healthy, and to keep the human population safe. Milo Priddy is one of these special humas. He is dragonkin. Dragons like him, trust him, and come to him when they need his help.
Even in Milo’s own world, the island nation of Kymbrygh in the United Preidynig Isles, in the continent of Mastiran, Milo is a rarity. His best childhood friend, indeed the lifelong chum who loves him, Ellis Morgan, is fascinated and puzzled by Milo’s gift. Because Milo is Dewin, one of three kinds of magical humans in the world, and the only magical humans who can manage dragons.
Milo and Ellis are young, let’s say fresh out of university young. They reconnect when Milo attends his first coven in Wellech, the largest metropolitan center of Kymbrygh. Although childhood friends, whose mothers remain close friends, Milo and Ellis haven’t seen each other for years. Only because Milo is accosted by two of Wellech’s wardens (police), does he encounter Ellis again. The spark is instant.
However, because we are so distracted by this chance meeting of old friends, we might only pay half-attention to the fact that Milo is singled out as a threat because he’s Dewin. For all his family’s high status in the country, it is this detail that makes him an object of fear and suspicion. To use the author’s musical metaphor, this is a motif that will run through the book, getting louder and more insistent, changing Milo and Ellis’s lives in ways they cannot imagine.
J.R.R. Tolkien always denied that his epic trilogy had anything to do with World War II, but he created a genre of fiction that has been revered and imitated ever since. The good-vs-evil paradigm is an ancient one in literature, and it is inevitable that authors will draw on their own world, their own knowledge, to create settings and characters that connect with them and their readers. Such is the case with “Sonata Form.” As the story unfolded, and I began to obsessively study the maps supplied by the author, I realized that Cummings seemed to be intentionally setting up a Lord of the Rings kind of epic tale of war between good and evil. It was easy to see a parallel with the events surrounding both world wars in Europe. On the other hand, the singling out of the Dewin people seems specifically echoing events in Germany in the 1930s. The broader theme (another musical term!) of anti-immigrant bias throughout the story resonates with our here and now in 2021—both in the Brexit mess in the United Kingdom, and in the virulent anti-immigration politics of the USA’s recently former president and his minions.
So, a lot to take in, especially if you’re stuck at home in a pandemic and have lots of time to think about Carole Cummings and the musical structure of her narrative. It gets very dark, this story, although Cummings relieves the darkness with moments of poetic beauty that left me with tears in my eyes and my heart pounding—more than once. Milo and Ellis are transformed by their love at first, then transformed by war and duty. This is not cozy romance. This is violent and difficult and thought-provoking. But it is still, thankfully, romance.
I’ll just leave it there, with a final quotation from near the end of the book, referring to the dragons, who matter a great deal: “All you have to do is love them. […] Love them like Milo does. And then they’ll know.” When you read this passage in context, you’ll know, too.
February 1, 2021
For a story to be considered a romance, the one hard and fast rule is that it must end in a happily ever after. For a story to be considered romantic, that’s much more flexible and is up to the reader to decide. Carole Cummings’ latest fantasy novel, Sonata Form, is the story of childhood best friends, Milo Priddy and Ellis Morgan, who are, by necessity, charmingly pragmatic about their relationship, because a) it’s a sort of built-in result of the deliberate nature of courtship in their world, and b) it’s complicated along the way by such things as distance, duty and service, xenophobia, and, ultimately, a war neither man escapes from unscathed. There is little doubt, however, the sweet expressions they mine from the depth of their love for each other are just about as endearing as it gets, and in the end, there is absolutely no doubt their hard-won reunion will be, if not the perfect happily ever after the Romance genre promises, at least an absolutely enduring, everlasting love.
There’s a certain synesthesia to reading, which Cummings capitalizes on in the telling of this story—“Reading words with a series of accompanying voices in your head, characterizing each sentence with an identity of its own . . . these experiences are examples of synesthesia.” Whether it’s the vibrancy of the colors, the sounds, the sights, the dragons, Milo using his magic or playing his violin, or the percussive notes of war, the words become images that complement the overall story, which is composed with a specific tempo and resonance in mind. Each time an accent was placed on specific words as they were delivered, it revealed that character’s emotions and emphasized how I “heard” those words and interpreted their significance. This along with Cummings’ detailed world-building, the decidedly Welsh influence on the story, the World War II-era feel to the setting, and the hatred of those deemed “other” that fueled the tension and ultimately led to the war, provided a deeper engagement and investment in the heartache of Milo and Ellis’s long separation and the heartfelt need to see them survive and reunite.
Of course, Milo and Ellis don’t carry this story alone, and it wouldn’t be the same tale without the friends and family who support them, influence them, and, at times, drive their decisions. There would also not be heroes in the story without the villains, of which there are two types—the more virulent, pervasive, intangible, and thus, the more difficult to defeat, being prejudice. War, duty, sacrifice, they each leave a mark on Milo and Ellis in this story of two people who are reunited by chance, separated by circumstance, and reunited again through sheer perseverance and the benevolence of all their goddesses. They spend more time apart than together along the way, but somehow there is never a question of the depth of the love they have for each other, or how far they are willing to go to do what’s right rather than what’s easy.
I became a fan of this author while reading her Wolf’s-own series and solidified my appreciation for her storytelling with the Aisling trilogy. Sonata Form is yet another example of the sort of fantasy Cummings writes; it isn’t romance, but there is always a clear and present romanticism to it that, in the end, delivers Milo and Ellis to the doorstep of their happy beginning.
There’s a certain synesthesia to reading, which Cummings capitalizes on in the telling of this story—“Reading words with a series of accompanying voices in your head, characterizing each sentence with an identity of its own . . . these experiences are examples of synesthesia.” Whether it’s the vibrancy of the colors, the sounds, the sights, the dragons, Milo using his magic or playing his violin, or the percussive notes of war, the words become images that complement the overall story, which is composed with a specific tempo and resonance in mind. Each time an accent was placed on specific words as they were delivered, it revealed that character’s emotions and emphasized how I “heard” those words and interpreted their significance. This along with Cummings’ detailed world-building, the decidedly Welsh influence on the story, the World War II-era feel to the setting, and the hatred of those deemed “other” that fueled the tension and ultimately led to the war, provided a deeper engagement and investment in the heartache of Milo and Ellis’s long separation and the heartfelt need to see them survive and reunite.
Of course, Milo and Ellis don’t carry this story alone, and it wouldn’t be the same tale without the friends and family who support them, influence them, and, at times, drive their decisions. There would also not be heroes in the story without the villains, of which there are two types—the more virulent, pervasive, intangible, and thus, the more difficult to defeat, being prejudice. War, duty, sacrifice, they each leave a mark on Milo and Ellis in this story of two people who are reunited by chance, separated by circumstance, and reunited again through sheer perseverance and the benevolence of all their goddesses. They spend more time apart than together along the way, but somehow there is never a question of the depth of the love they have for each other, or how far they are willing to go to do what’s right rather than what’s easy.
I became a fan of this author while reading her Wolf’s-own series and solidified my appreciation for her storytelling with the Aisling trilogy. Sonata Form is yet another example of the sort of fantasy Cummings writes; it isn’t romance, but there is always a clear and present romanticism to it that, in the end, delivers Milo and Ellis to the doorstep of their happy beginning.
March 7, 2021
Thank you to Pride Book Tours & the author for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
I enjoy discovering new authors, and thanks to this tour, I have now discovered the magnificent works of Carole Cummings; I'm certainly looking forward to more.
The writing style grabbed me very quickly and it is easy to get completely lost in it; highly immersive world-building, complex characters, dragons cast in a different light.
Read this book because:
- Welsh / Irish / Scottish influences
- DRAGONS!
- LGBTQIA+
- Musical references
- Cute gay boys XD
- DRAGONS!
- Violins!
- Unique magic system
- The "Contract" system is intriguing
- DRAGONS!
It would have been fortunate if the author provided a note to pronunciation beforehand, which would have helped immensely - later, to save time, I kind of gave these names a "close approximation" or a replacement (eg, the word for "novice" I would read as novice) in order for me to enjoy the story and not continue to stumble on - since the built search feature of the Kindle was absolutely useless in this regard...
Overall, this is a highly enjoyable book with lovable characters and a world you can escape into.
I enjoy discovering new authors, and thanks to this tour, I have now discovered the magnificent works of Carole Cummings; I'm certainly looking forward to more.
The writing style grabbed me very quickly and it is easy to get completely lost in it; highly immersive world-building, complex characters, dragons cast in a different light.
Read this book because:
- Welsh / Irish / Scottish influences
- DRAGONS!
- LGBTQIA+
- Musical references
- Cute gay boys XD
- DRAGONS!
- Violins!
- Unique magic system
- The "Contract" system is intriguing
- DRAGONS!
It would have been fortunate if the author provided a note to pronunciation beforehand, which would have helped immensely - later, to save time, I kind of gave these names a "close approximation" or a replacement (eg, the word for "novice" I would read as novice) in order for me to enjoy the story and not continue to stumble on - since the built search feature of the Kindle was absolutely useless in this regard...
Overall, this is a highly enjoyable book with lovable characters and a world you can escape into.
March 11, 2021
An amazing dragon fantasy with a slow simmering plot. I'll be honest I wasn't expecting much from this but it blew me away and it's one I know will be worth the reread if nothing else to tease out the complexities I no doubt missed the first time around. Sonata Form follows Milo a powerful sorcerer and Dragonkin who devotes his life to caring for dragons and Ellis his childhood best friend and later lover who is the leader of neighbouring Wellech.
It has a slow start and throws you in the deep end with its world-building but its one that's worth pushing through as the plot gradually builds up to all-out war and some of the most thrilling battle scenes I've read. It's beautifully written and I know I highlighted way too many lines but I could not help myself. This is a book I want to shove into the hand of any fantasy and dragon lover, it's one of the best I've read all year and I want more people to read it!
It has a slow start and throws you in the deep end with its world-building but its one that's worth pushing through as the plot gradually builds up to all-out war and some of the most thrilling battle scenes I've read. It's beautifully written and I know I highlighted way too many lines but I could not help myself. This is a book I want to shove into the hand of any fantasy and dragon lover, it's one of the best I've read all year and I want more people to read it!
December 22, 2020
I was lucky enough to get an ARC of Carole's new novel Sonata Form. A Fan of Aisling and Wolf-Own series? Sonata Form has all the wonderful world-building Cummings is known for and a beautiful romance that made my heart sing.
I don't want to spoil anything but there are wonderful dragons that are vital to the plot. If you need a book to escape into and forget all about lockdown Sonata Form has your back.
5 Wonderful Stars and I can't wait for you all to read it in January.
I don't want to spoil anything but there are wonderful dragons that are vital to the plot. If you need a book to escape into and forget all about lockdown Sonata Form has your back.
5 Wonderful Stars and I can't wait for you all to read it in January.
December 15, 2024
I bounced off this book a couple of times, but between my book-bestie (who loves it) and this review, I was convinced to try it again.
AND I’M SO GLAD I DID! Because I adore it. New favourite, the biggest book-hangover, I am in awe, this is MAGNIFICENT!
It also doesn’t fit perfectly neatly into any easy trope or genre boxes (which I very much approve of): there’s a romantic element that’s incredibly important, but the two characters only see each other once a month; there are dragons, but this is definitely not any kind of dragon-rider story; there’s a lot of political conflict threatening to break out into war, but a lot of the local political conflict is tied up with awful family drama.
It’s a lot, is what I’m saying, and I love it for that.
(To be extra clear: calling this a romantic fantasy is pretty misleading. It’s definitely not Romantasy. Milo and Ellis’ relationship is foundational to the book, but I think ‘romantic fantasy’ gives the impression that a story is going to be relatively low-stakes, and that any other plotlines will be subservient to the romantic one, and neither is the case in Sonata Form.)
The setting is…a little bit like what you might get in a pre-WW2 Britain if Wales had conquered the rest of the UK. If the UK was made up of three islands. What that most immediately means is that there is a lot of Welsh; Welsh people-names, place-names, nouns, terminology, endearments, titles, and all the rest of it. If you’ve never encountered Welsh before…well, Welsh looks pretty intimidating, written down. The spelling (and phonetics) make almost no sense to an English-speaker. I can imagine some readers being put off by it, just like when an author has too many made-up fantasy terms in their book that it becomes impenetrable. But I implore you to stick with it, if the Welsh looks scary! It is so very worth it!
And the worldbuilding is fabulous, superficially simple but wonderfully detailed; there are three-person marriages and contracts for courting, the dragonkin, agricultural economics, and a religious/government body that can deny approval for marriages involving wealth, political influence, and/or magic. Trying to untangle the political hierarchies was honestly fun, because there are a bunch of positions that aren’t in the same chain-of-command (so to speak) but do interact or intersect, and some of the problems/issues that arise from that were extremely plot-relevant. And the magic! I LOVED that there were multiple magical practices, with their own histories and cultures and reputation; I loved that Milo could immediately tell what kind of practitioner someone was when he saw them cast. The main source of the it’s-going-to-be-war conflict was the growing persecution of one kind of magic-user, and it was fascinating to see this one kind of magic singled out for hatred. Awful, but fascinating, because – why not the other kinds too? Why not all magic? And it’s messy and terrible and tied up with a number of different prejudices (and some people are against all magic, at that, which is again Extremely Plot Relevant) and it was all…painfully believable.
I don’t even want to talk about the romance, really – I’m terrible at talking about romance: I’ll just say that it was beautiful and wonderful and left me emotionally devastated and leave it at that. But what most impressed was how…how freaking excellent a depiction this is of a country – mostly one region of a country – just…losing itself to hate. The slow, grinding descent into bigotry and stupidity and violence. And what happens when that happens. What it costs, what it takes to fix things (as much as they can be fixed). How some people can be redeemed, and some can’t. (Or won’t.) What kind of person is required to fight back against hate.
Which all makes Sonata Form sound very grim, and I didn’t find it grim. Heavy, at times, sure. Heartbreaking in parts. But I’d call it rich, rather than grim. Complex, deep, delicious. Unbelievably impressive! Cummings plays the reader’s heart the way Milo plays the violin; this is very much a book that makes you feel All The Things, from glittery delight to terror and back again. It was so easy to sink into this story, to lose myself in it; everything felt so immediate, so real, so realistic, even with the magic and the dragons. I wasn’t reading it; I was living it. I don’t know how to put it better than that.
This deserves a much longer, more in-depth, more elegant and polished and poetic review, but I am not up to it and I am sorry for that. (The book-hangover I have from this one, folx, I cannot EVEN.) I really hope I’ve convinced you to pick this one up, though. I can’t believe it’s so under the radar, when it’s such a freaking MASTERPIECE. Five stars, six stars, ALL THE STARS!
(And just in case it needs saying: the dragons are amazing and I love them. Of course they are. Of course I did. No one is surprised!)
AND I’M SO GLAD I DID! Because I adore it. New favourite, the biggest book-hangover, I am in awe, this is MAGNIFICENT!
It also doesn’t fit perfectly neatly into any easy trope or genre boxes (which I very much approve of): there’s a romantic element that’s incredibly important, but the two characters only see each other once a month; there are dragons, but this is definitely not any kind of dragon-rider story; there’s a lot of political conflict threatening to break out into war, but a lot of the local political conflict is tied up with awful family drama.
It’s a lot, is what I’m saying, and I love it for that.
(To be extra clear: calling this a romantic fantasy is pretty misleading. It’s definitely not Romantasy. Milo and Ellis’ relationship is foundational to the book, but I think ‘romantic fantasy’ gives the impression that a story is going to be relatively low-stakes, and that any other plotlines will be subservient to the romantic one, and neither is the case in Sonata Form.)
The setting is…a little bit like what you might get in a pre-WW2 Britain if Wales had conquered the rest of the UK. If the UK was made up of three islands. What that most immediately means is that there is a lot of Welsh; Welsh people-names, place-names, nouns, terminology, endearments, titles, and all the rest of it. If you’ve never encountered Welsh before…well, Welsh looks pretty intimidating, written down. The spelling (and phonetics) make almost no sense to an English-speaker. I can imagine some readers being put off by it, just like when an author has too many made-up fantasy terms in their book that it becomes impenetrable. But I implore you to stick with it, if the Welsh looks scary! It is so very worth it!
And the worldbuilding is fabulous, superficially simple but wonderfully detailed; there are three-person marriages and contracts for courting, the dragonkin, agricultural economics, and a religious/government body that can deny approval for marriages involving wealth, political influence, and/or magic. Trying to untangle the political hierarchies was honestly fun, because there are a bunch of positions that aren’t in the same chain-of-command (so to speak) but do interact or intersect, and some of the problems/issues that arise from that were extremely plot-relevant. And the magic! I LOVED that there were multiple magical practices, with their own histories and cultures and reputation; I loved that Milo could immediately tell what kind of practitioner someone was when he saw them cast. The main source of the it’s-going-to-be-war conflict was the growing persecution of one kind of magic-user, and it was fascinating to see this one kind of magic singled out for hatred. Awful, but fascinating, because – why not the other kinds too? Why not all magic? And it’s messy and terrible and tied up with a number of different prejudices (and some people are against all magic, at that, which is again Extremely Plot Relevant) and it was all…painfully believable.
I don’t even want to talk about the romance, really – I’m terrible at talking about romance: I’ll just say that it was beautiful and wonderful and left me emotionally devastated and leave it at that. But what most impressed was how…how freaking excellent a depiction this is of a country – mostly one region of a country – just…losing itself to hate. The slow, grinding descent into bigotry and stupidity and violence. And what happens when that happens. What it costs, what it takes to fix things (as much as they can be fixed). How some people can be redeemed, and some can’t. (Or won’t.) What kind of person is required to fight back against hate.
Which all makes Sonata Form sound very grim, and I didn’t find it grim. Heavy, at times, sure. Heartbreaking in parts. But I’d call it rich, rather than grim. Complex, deep, delicious. Unbelievably impressive! Cummings plays the reader’s heart the way Milo plays the violin; this is very much a book that makes you feel All The Things, from glittery delight to terror and back again. It was so easy to sink into this story, to lose myself in it; everything felt so immediate, so real, so realistic, even with the magic and the dragons. I wasn’t reading it; I was living it. I don’t know how to put it better than that.
This deserves a much longer, more in-depth, more elegant and polished and poetic review, but I am not up to it and I am sorry for that. (The book-hangover I have from this one, folx, I cannot EVEN.) I really hope I’ve convinced you to pick this one up, though. I can’t believe it’s so under the radar, when it’s such a freaking MASTERPIECE. Five stars, six stars, ALL THE STARS!
(And just in case it needs saying: the dragons are amazing and I love them. Of course they are. Of course I did. No one is surprised!)
October 14, 2021
DNF @ 45% mark - and it shocks me a little that I could experience a DNF with a Cumming's title. It's not a good thing when I had no idea where the plot was heading ... conversation and scene went by and I got progressively bored and increasingly irritated by the ?Welsh vernacular and terms and a somewhat 'modern' fantasy world with planes and cars and dragons?? I guess there's a war brewing, with extreme prejudice toward magic-wielders by the regular populace, there are hints of dragons being killed/kidnapped ... but I gave up after fast-forwarding a couple of chapters! Also MC Milo annoyed me no end with his whining about many issues (family, responsibilities). 1.5 stars.
February 18, 2021
If this had been from a new-to-me author, I might’ve left this as a DNF somewhere in the first 20%. It’s dense with unusual names for characters and places and I felt a bit dropped in without a clue. But I trust Cummings so I stuck with it and the writing did keep me engaged from moment to moment, even if I never did feel like I totally understood the geopolitical landscape. To be fair, this was probably less the author’s doing and more because I was not interested in that enough to follow closely or to keep consulting the map provided. It sufficed that I knew why they were at war, I didn’t keep track of all the various places/forces doing it.
Anyway, the bigger problem was that the MCs are separated for just about the entire second half of the book, with one of them off-page for much of that time to boot. I kept reading the scenes of guerrilla warfare waiting for the story to get back on the track I wanted it to be on, but no luck.
So this one just wasn’t the right fit for me. If you go into it without my expectations and just want a good fantasy yarn, this may be perfect for you.
Anyway, the bigger problem was that the MCs are separated for just about the entire second half of the book, with one of them off-page for much of that time to boot. I kept reading the scenes of guerrilla warfare waiting for the story to get back on the track I wanted it to be on, but no luck.
So this one just wasn’t the right fit for me. If you go into it without my expectations and just want a good fantasy yarn, this may be perfect for you.
December 27, 2021
Wow. What an adventure.
Sonata Form took me back to my younger days, reading Tolkien by flashlight after lights out. I finished this morning at 4 a.m. This is old-school high fantasy, with a gay romance twist, though the romance is not the main aspect, and the only sex scenes are fade-to-black, which suits the story.
I'll admit that it took me a while to really get immersed, partly because of holidays not allowing much reading time, and partly because the author gives us a new vocabulary for the world she's built, and quite a few cast members introduced quickly. Also, though cars are mentioned, it took me a while to figure out if the fantasy world was like our modern one, or more historical. The idea of relationship contracts figures heavily into the story too. Once I got past the new terms and wrapped my head around who was who, off we went! And what wonderful characters they are!
The high point of the story, for me, was the deep relationships, not just with the main couple, but with their friends and family. In the worst of times (war) they ground and bring out the best in each other. By friends and family, I also mean the dragons. Though wild and dangerous, they protect the humans they see as theirs.
The story shows heroic behavior, humans at their best, as well as humans at their worst, with envy, betrayal, hatred... And overall, deep, abiding love.
There is war, and the evil that comes with it, but it's kept strictly to what's needed for the telling of the tale, with nothing gratuitous.
Though our heroes Milo and Ellis spend a good deal of time apart, they remain connected. I won't give spoilers. Just trust me on this. It's the author's gift to convey how much these two men mean to each other, and how their love shapes their daily decisions, even apart.
Once I reached the halfway point, I couldn't put the book down, as proven by me staying up until the wee hours to finish, and then being sad that it was over.
Highly recommended!
Sonata Form took me back to my younger days, reading Tolkien by flashlight after lights out. I finished this morning at 4 a.m. This is old-school high fantasy, with a gay romance twist, though the romance is not the main aspect, and the only sex scenes are fade-to-black, which suits the story.
I'll admit that it took me a while to really get immersed, partly because of holidays not allowing much reading time, and partly because the author gives us a new vocabulary for the world she's built, and quite a few cast members introduced quickly. Also, though cars are mentioned, it took me a while to figure out if the fantasy world was like our modern one, or more historical. The idea of relationship contracts figures heavily into the story too. Once I got past the new terms and wrapped my head around who was who, off we went! And what wonderful characters they are!
The high point of the story, for me, was the deep relationships, not just with the main couple, but with their friends and family. In the worst of times (war) they ground and bring out the best in each other. By friends and family, I also mean the dragons. Though wild and dangerous, they protect the humans they see as theirs.
The story shows heroic behavior, humans at their best, as well as humans at their worst, with envy, betrayal, hatred... And overall, deep, abiding love.
There is war, and the evil that comes with it, but it's kept strictly to what's needed for the telling of the tale, with nothing gratuitous.
Though our heroes Milo and Ellis spend a good deal of time apart, they remain connected. I won't give spoilers. Just trust me on this. It's the author's gift to convey how much these two men mean to each other, and how their love shapes their daily decisions, even apart.
Once I reached the halfway point, I couldn't put the book down, as proven by me staying up until the wee hours to finish, and then being sad that it was over.
Highly recommended!
January 15, 2025
Once Upon a Time he jotted in lines that were not chiseled flat and stark into marbled history but laid soft and malleable as a sonata within the liminal spaces between the beats of his heart.
Once Upon a Time there was a man whose story was jarred out of true by a torn and ruined page, moments splotched in blood-red ink...
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
At this point, I have no words except that more people need to go read this masterpiece. Went in thinking I was gonna get a cozy light-hearted romance featuring dragons and fluff and instead was blown away by an incredibly complex fantasy in a sort of pre-WWI Wales seeped in the vivid magical aesthetics that permeates the setting of Miyazaki's adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle where such things as dragons and mages coexist with trains, planes, and rifles. And while there is a love story woven into its tapestry (that'll melt your heart but also tear into it at the same time) that's not really what this book is about.
It's the story of two lives that are torn apart by war.
It's about Milo Priddy, a young man who plays the violin for an audience of dragons, who loves and cares for them like family, who despite being quiet and sensitive is always the first to fight for something he believes in because "when Milo loved someone or something, he did it with everything in him."
It's about Ellis Morgan dy Rees, his childhood friend and later lover, who struggles relentlessly to undo all the bigotry and hatred his politician father has sown among the people of Wellech for the refugees escaping the neighboring dictatorship, who tries to understand his place in history as his country arrives at the eve of its darkest hour.
It's about duty and what we're willing to sacrifice in order to protect the people we love and THAT is really what just about DESTROYED me.
Sonata Form is a heavy read, both emotionally and thematically. Carole Cummings tackles the spectrum of human ugliness and goodness in such an honest light. I found myself laughing out loud at parts, fuming in others, heart pounding in nervousness in the second half, and then most of all shedding so many tears throughout. Certain scenes in this story will forever be etched into my head. It's also the sort of book that demands a closer reread just to tease out all the details of this magnificent world and its characters. To top it all off, the writing is gorgeous and Milo and Ellis are just so likeable and flawed and their voices were sooo alive like how Carole Cummings how
Maybe one day I'll have recovered enough to put together a coherent review. But like the movements of a musical composition, I think this book is something that just needs to be experienced because no amount of words will ever be able to capture the devastating beauty of this story.
— ♩♫♩ ~ Braveheart Theme │ Dacw' Nghariad
— ✎ Art
February 23, 2021
I'm a huge Carole Cummings fan. I've read her Wolf's Own Trilogy and Aisling Trilogy multiple times. And this story has all the elements I associate with those great works - deep world building, vivid descriptions of magic, interesting side characters you come to really care for, diverse cultural representation, and large, realistic, wide-ranging conflicts.
And, of course, handsome, powerful heroes with deep, magical bonds! And one thing about Cummings's stories - her protagonists *suffer* - not in a gratuitous way, but they experience real loss, have to make hard decisions, and it just makes everything so much more consequential and the HEA/HFN that much more wonderful.
My personal standard for five stars is "would happily read again," and this book definitely meets that standard. So I heartily recommend this book!
And, of course, handsome, powerful heroes with deep, magical bonds! And one thing about Cummings's stories - her protagonists *suffer* - not in a gratuitous way, but they experience real loss, have to make hard decisions, and it just makes everything so much more consequential and the HEA/HFN that much more wonderful.
My personal standard for five stars is "would happily read again," and this book definitely meets that standard. So I heartily recommend this book!
March 29, 2022
“Sonata Form” is a magical story and brings the delightful character Milo Priddy to life as he’s on a grand journey!
Milo is a Dewin and is headed to take his rite. On his way he’s assaulted by the three Wardens of Wellech, crossing over the bridge to the Outpost. He’s a dargonkin, who cares and gives special attention to dragons. He follows in the footsteps of his Nain.
Elly Morgan is the supervisor of the wardens and steps in. When Milo and Elly were much younger they were friends and lost connection with each other. Elly’s life is somewhat dark, as he wrested power from a bigoted leader. Elly’s position as a warden and war keeps him apart from Milo. But it becomes complicated as his feeling start to become more urgent.
With Milo being a Dewin, his Mam first chair of the coven and his magical abilities, Elly finds it hard to understand. With all they have to face and the time apart can they find a way to be together to build a new life?
“Sonata Form” is an epic, world building, magical, fantasy by Carole Cummings. It’s a story of friendships, love, jealousy, betrayal. It also has the evils of war and what stems from it. There’s also heroism and the reality of good and bad humans. From some of the dragon stories I have read, the focus on dragons in this novel is new and different.
There’s special significance to the musical chapter headings, as several of the characters play a musical instrument. In Milo’s case a violin.
Cummings also creates an interesting take on the Welch language. It did slow down the reading and took some time to adjust to the usage.
The maps of Mstiran Continent and Kymbrygh included in the book give a perfect view of the territories.
I really like Milo and Ellis. They brought humor, charm and just the right amount of romance to the story.
There is a host of characters just to name a few. Lilibet Ellis’ Mam, Petra, Dilys, Ceri, Beth, Andras, Zophia, Alek and Glynn. Some do go by more than one name.
I hadn’t read a Carole Cummings novel in a long time, but I found “Sonata Form” to be a challenging read but very entertaining in a unique way!
Milo is a Dewin and is headed to take his rite. On his way he’s assaulted by the three Wardens of Wellech, crossing over the bridge to the Outpost. He’s a dargonkin, who cares and gives special attention to dragons. He follows in the footsteps of his Nain.
Elly Morgan is the supervisor of the wardens and steps in. When Milo and Elly were much younger they were friends and lost connection with each other. Elly’s life is somewhat dark, as he wrested power from a bigoted leader. Elly’s position as a warden and war keeps him apart from Milo. But it becomes complicated as his feeling start to become more urgent.
With Milo being a Dewin, his Mam first chair of the coven and his magical abilities, Elly finds it hard to understand. With all they have to face and the time apart can they find a way to be together to build a new life?
“Sonata Form” is an epic, world building, magical, fantasy by Carole Cummings. It’s a story of friendships, love, jealousy, betrayal. It also has the evils of war and what stems from it. There’s also heroism and the reality of good and bad humans. From some of the dragon stories I have read, the focus on dragons in this novel is new and different.
There’s special significance to the musical chapter headings, as several of the characters play a musical instrument. In Milo’s case a violin.
Cummings also creates an interesting take on the Welch language. It did slow down the reading and took some time to adjust to the usage.
The maps of Mstiran Continent and Kymbrygh included in the book give a perfect view of the territories.
I really like Milo and Ellis. They brought humor, charm and just the right amount of romance to the story.
There is a host of characters just to name a few. Lilibet Ellis’ Mam, Petra, Dilys, Ceri, Beth, Andras, Zophia, Alek and Glynn. Some do go by more than one name.
I hadn’t read a Carole Cummings novel in a long time, but I found “Sonata Form” to be a challenging read but very entertaining in a unique way!
March 21, 2024
The beginning of this book is not easy to get through. The opening parade of names from starting a new book is more of a barrage that is exacerbated by also getting titles and other unfamiliar words in that barrage that make keeping track of which is what and what do they mean if they aren't a name difficult. However, once that is dealt with this opens up to being a good book.
It is very "the Great war" aligned, before it starts and then someone who stayed at home. I particularly like that it is divided into two books for those two distinct segments and each of those is a single character perspective.
It is very "the Great war" aligned, before it starts and then someone who stayed at home. I particularly like that it is divided into two books for those two distinct segments and each of those is a single character perspective.
May 19, 2021
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a free copy
I really hate giving more negative reviews to smaller books (which is why I did gloss over what I didn't like in my post for the tour), but I really did not enjoy this.
What I did like:
Dragons
great mlm romance
the chapter titles and how it ties in different elements of a sonata into what occurs in the chapter
however, it just dragged for me and I genuinely could not get into it.
I really hate giving more negative reviews to smaller books (which is why I did gloss over what I didn't like in my post for the tour), but I really did not enjoy this.
What I did like:
Dragons
great mlm romance
the chapter titles and how it ties in different elements of a sonata into what occurs in the chapter
however, it just dragged for me and I genuinely could not get into it.
February 27, 2022
The synopsis is wildly misleading. If I'd known this was a grim war story, I wouldn't have read it. Personally, I found the prose style difficult, and many of the characters less than likeable, but my main issue is that this is one of the most depressing things I've ever read and without what I would consider sufficient warning of that in the description. Not for me at all, but ymmv. If you want a realistically dark war story with dragons and pyrrhic victories, here you go.
April 13, 2021
I may try again at a later date. Right now, it's too focused on war activities.
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