The Music Shop

An uplifting, heart-warming love story from the Sunday Times bestselling author

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Summary

From the author of the world-wide bestseller, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry:

' A beautiful novel, a tonic for the soul and a complete joy to read.' Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep.

1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk - as long as it's vinyl he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need.

Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann.

Ilse asks Frank to teach her about music. His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her pea-green coat and her eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems. And Frank has old wounds that threaten to re-open and a past he will never leave behind ...

'Hits all the right notes...a love story that's as much about the silences between words as what is said - the spaces between people that can be filled with mystery, confusion and misunderstanding as well as hope." Observer

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Reviews

Rachel Joyce tells wonderful stories. In her hands, ordinary lives are given dignity and triumph. She is a champion of humanity, and The Music Shop is no exception. It is a joyous love song that pulses with hope and benevolence and laughter.
Sarah Winman, author of When God Was a Rabbit and Tin Man

About the author

Rachel Joyce

Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North, The Music Shop, Miss Benson's Beetle, and a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories.
Rachel’s books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The critically acclaimed film of the novel, for which Rachel also wrote the screenplay, was released in 2023. Miss Benson’s Beetle won the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize in 2021. Rachel was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards New Writer of the Year in December 2012 and was shortlisted for the UK Author of the Year in 2014. In 2024 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Kingston University.
Rachel has written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4. She lives with her family near Stroud.

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