The Violin: A Gothic Novel

Felipe Riviera, a young Peruvian landowner of the nineteenth century, has built his life on order, reason, and discipline. For him, music is not inspiration: it is will-something to be studied, mastered, and perfected.But when he meets the enigmatic Baron Medrano-an aristocrat of unsettling presence and impossible talent-Felipe discovers a kind of excellence that does not answer to human effort. As his violin reaches an ever more supernatural precision, something in his body begins to give way. His music improves. His vitality dims. And what at first seemed a method reveals itself, slowly, as an exchange.Set among Peruvian haciendas, the salons of the young republic, and the ancient shadow of Nazca, The Violin is a gothic novel about the price of genius, the refusal of limits, and the fragile distance between playing without error and remaining human.Some gifts aren't earned. They're paid for.