I loved this book. It is a beautifully written book about love , loss and second chances.
It is certainly an unusual book about how a piece of music can change peoples lives around the world . From Diana who originally wrote it for Arie the love of her life through the various characters and their stories, finally arriving with Arie
It was a cleverly thought out book, extremely enjoyable, and a fantastic story
Thank you to Netgalley, Random House Uk for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review

In Australia, Arie Johnson waits impatiently for classical pianist Diana Clare to return from a world tour, — hopeful that after seven years together she'll finally agree to marry him. Meanwhile, on her travels, Diana composes a song for Arie. It's the perfect way to express her love, knowing they'll spend their lives together…won't they?

Then, one night, her love song is overheard — and it starts its own trip across the world.

In Scotland, Evie Greenlees is drifting. It's been years since she left Australia with a backpack, a one-way ticket and a dream of becoming a poet. Now she spends her days making coffee and her nights serving beer. And she's not even sure whether the guy she lives with is really her boyfriend or just a flatmate. Then one day she hears an exquisite love song. One that will connect her to a man with a broken heart...

This was such a beautifully well-written (and heartbreaking) story; one about love, loss and how a love song changes people's lives. The love story between the characters will have you enchanted from the very first page, and it's totally impossible not to get invested. A read-in-one-sitting kind of book -- just make sure to have tissues nearby.

The Lost Love Song is a very unusual story about the power of music and memory. Many years after the tragic death of his girlfriend, Diana, Arie hears a melody reminiscent of the one she had written and played for him the night before she left; she had planned to finish the song while on tour.
After several years travelling overseas, Evie returns to Melbourne and just happens to rent the house next door to Arie. She had heard two young musicians playing the song at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, and never forgotten it. The haunting melody has stayed with her and she is trying to play it on her guitar when Arie overhears, and it triggers his last memories of Diana.
Diana’s love song leaves an impression on everyone who hears it, and it makes its way around the world, from musician to musician, until someone adds lyrics and records it. The melody may have changed slightly, but the essential feeling is still there.
Despite being attracted to Evie, Arie does not feel quite ready for a new relationship, and lets her slip through his fingers with no way of getting in touch. Will Diana’s song help Arie move on and find love again with Evie?
A lot of the story is set in Australia, which is unusual, and I confess I had to get the atlas out to find the places mentioned in the book. I also found Evie’s poems very moving, and was glad she did not give up on her dreams.
The characters are well rounded and believable. The Lost Love Song deals with grief and loss in a very sensitive way, particularly how Arie and Belinda (Diana’s mother) find it hard to move on without her body to lay to rest. It is also about love, hope and second chances; despite the tragedy, the story is ultimately uplifting and hopeful.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC to review.

This is a novel of love and loss and of the power of music to connect people. The connection weaving its way though the book is a piece of music written by concert pianist Diana Clare for her soon to be fiancé Arie Johnson. But through a twist of fate this piece of music then proceeds to weave a complicated path that effects a number of characters across the globe.
I loved how the story tracks its way back and forth between the different characters (and continents) each of them likable and relatable in their own way.
I found the way the author approached the theme of loss and how grief effects each individual very affecting. Some of the things certain characters do may at first seem strange or even shocking to some, but I feel that these actions in themselves served a sort of cathartic cleansing and a proper closure for those involved. And Belinda’s words at the end of the chapter “we have a special talent for losing people” made me tear up and hope for a miracle to bring a happy ending.
I would recommend this story to anyone who loves romantic novels, but I would also say that music lovers would enjoys this as well.

I really enjoyed this book, the story of Diana Clare's love song written and performed once by her, and then lost after her tragic death. Her husband Arie, grieving for his wife, but his instant love of Evie after a brief encounter, a true love story, a song that finds its way to different couples, all who appreciate the song for what it is, but all who know nothing of its whereabouts or where it came from, and the way in which the song travels around the world, to be brought back to Arie. The couples are all very different, brought together in different ways, across different generations, and so something in the love story will appeal to most readers. It was very cleverly thought through and put together and beautifully written. The characters were well developed and likeable, and the story and the way in which it was interlinked was fabulous. If you like an easy read, and romance then I'd definitely recommend this book.

I gave it five stars on Goodreads and it was really worth it.
Thank you to Netgalley for my free copy .

Unusual love story that tugs at the heartstrings . Arie is waiting at home in Australia for Diane to return from a world tour .Diane ,a classical pianist ,is composing a song expressing her love for him . One night it’s overheard and so begins it’s own journey connecting people around the world until eventually it finds its way back to Arie.
Romantic, sad and bittersweet

I wasn’t sure I would like this book at first but I was wrong. It shows that love means everything and the world isn’t as small as you think it is

A book full of sadness, but followed by joy. How a song ties various people together across the world. A very enjoyable read.

Separate People and separate stories all tied together by a song. Well written characters, great plot and lovely Connections. Makes you want to actually hear the song! Loved it.

This was a lovely story to read, whilst there was sadness, there was also joy and I loved the fact that this unknown love song was at the centre of the story. I loved the characters within and really enjoyed sharing their stories. I found that it was very well written and flowed easily from chapter to chapter.

Unfortunately I really couldn't get into this book, and once I was about 40% through I had to put it down as a DNF.

A delicate story about the power of song and of second chances. This book is not my usual style but it was very enjoyable.

It's been a long time since I read Love Story, with its immense emotions and music entwined.

This book took me back to that time, it engulfs you in emotion, you feel the love and loss, recovery and memories, all surrounded by music. So familiar!

It is a good read on the whole, but I felt the ending was dragged out a bit and could have been cut shorter and neater. That warm feeling though, that lingers well after you've finished it!

This is a really charming story of love, loss and hope. I loved the characters of Arie and Evie and enjoyed how the lost love song brought them together. The additional little stories of other characters and how the lost love song interweaved amongst them all were delightful. As the music touched lots of people on its journey, I wonder if it really was a 'lost' love song, when actually, it was 'found' by so many.

World renowned concert pianist Diana starts to write a love song for partner Arie. But when she is killed in a plane accident, all that’s left is a notebook with the outline of the tune, which finds its way half way around the world. Two years later, backpacking Evie hears the song from student buskers in Edinburgh. She takes it back to Australia with her, and there she meets Arie, still coming to terms with losing Diana. Will the magic of the love song finally bring him happiness, or is his grief too strong?

I resisted starting this book, as I’m not good with sad stories, but actually The Lost Love Song is about far more than the grief of loss. I loved the different strands of the song’s existence - from Diana’s notebook, via Beatrix and Felix’s growing romance and Elijah and Lucie’s recording to Evie and Arie’s connection. Each link of the song‘s journey is told in an ‘Interlude’ mini chapter, and these include many different characters and their stories add to the overall feel good nature of the book.

An enjoyable tale.

A beautiful love story with a lost song at its heart, weaving and whispering in and around so many peoples lives. I really enjoyed this book. Moments of sadness and of joy. The telling of this tale really touches your heart. Definitely a story to lose yourself in.

Thank you Netgalley

As the title would suggest, this is a book about the power of music to express emotion, tell a tale and unite people.
It is also a book about love. Not simpering, marshmallow, fleeting love, but love that binds couples and one particular mother and daughter together forever.
The black manuscript book with a red ribbon as a marker inadvertently travels the world when it is left on a piano by the incredible and celebrated pianist Diana Clare.
Diana is Arie's true love but unfortunately life intervenes in a way that means Arie is lost. He isn't the only one struggling to find his way though. From Melbourne, Australia to Singapore, London, Canada and Edinburgh, via pubs, cafes, hotels and homes, there is a song in the book, not quite finished, which strikes a chord in the hearts and minds of everyone who hears the song.
No-one knows who wrote it - (the reader does) - and it doesn't stay exactly the same as the original. Yet everyone who hears it knows it is a love song.
Bene hears it played by the writer and musician in Singapore and is the one responsible for the first leg of the notebook's journey. That one song brings together Felix and Beatrix, two older teenagers, one a cello player, the other a flautist , even though Felix lives in Canada and Beatrix in London, the miles don't matter. It helps Evie escape the non relationship she has with Dave the poet and brings her back to Australia.
The song unites a lead singer with roving musician Elijah and it is what Belinda, Diana's mother, listens to when the loneliness gets too much.
There is a banjo and guitar playing with a folk feel to the song by the time it is aired on radio and dubbed For Real. It is played by a band - Lucie Doran and the Curious Lovers - and it is in Hobart where the gig is held that the story comes full circle.
The book is romantic, gentle, achingly sad in places and beautifully poetic. It also evokes a sense of timing, of fate and of parallel lives, a beautiful inspiring ode to love and second chances.
I loved the fact that the characters were different ages, with different lives and in different places and yet love bloomed with the song, as the past and the present combine in delightful serendipitous ways to bring various people together For Real and for the future.

This is the story of a love song . . . And like any good love song, it has two parts.

Arie Johnson and Diana Clare live in Australia and are very much in love, after seven years together, he is hopeful that she will finally agree to marry him. As Diana, who is a famous concert pianist, prepares to leave for a world tour she tells him she'll think about it. While Diana is away she begins to compose a song for Arie, to express her love for him, the events that follow mean the song is never completed by Diana, but after being overheard one night it starts it's own journey around the world.

Evie Greenlees has been travelling for the last six years since leaving her home in Australia, with a dream of becoming a poet, but she can't settle and decides to return home, stood in a train station in Edinburgh she hears the most beautiful love song, little does she know, at that moment, what a huge effect that song will have on the rest of her life.

My favourite genre is psychological thrillers but every so often I like to have a break from the norm and throw in a romance, a chick lit or some contemporary fiction and it's books like this that make me glad I do. I'm an old romantic, love a happy ending and was hoping that the characters in this book would have just that. It's a story of love, loss, grief, second chances. This book depicts the lives of multiple characters, with their own stories, but they are all loosely linked by this one beautiful love song, which has an impact on them all in different ways. The story is bittersweet and shows how much of an impact music can have on many of us through life, whether it be the tune or a lyric that resonates with our own situation, it's a beautifully written book and the first I've read by this author, but it captured my heart from the first page and I was so caught up in the emotions of it all, that I read it in less than 24 hours. A stunning read that you don't want to miss.

I'd like to thank RandomHouse UK Transworld and Netgalley for the approval, I will post my review on Amazon and Goodreads.

This is a book of love, grief and finding a new life. The lost love song is just so beautifully written. You feel all of Arie”s emotions leaping off the page. However, don’t feel this is a depressing book because it certainly isn’t.

Diana and Arie are in love. They’ve been together years. However, Diana a very talented pianist just loves Arie and doesn’t feel the need to get married. They argue about this before she sets off on a concert tour. This leads her to compose a beautiful piece of music to explain her love. However, on the way to Paris she is killed in a plane crash. Diane had accidentally left her note book in the hotel after working on the piece in the lobby. The book is found and the finder decides rather than leaving the book in lost property he will try to find the owner. Here begins the journey of the lost love song.

You certainly won’t be disappointed with this book. Wonderful characters and an exceptional storyline. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the arc in return for an honest review

Lost Love Song

I’m writing this review just moments after finishing this beautifully romantic book, so I still have a lump in my throat and I’m torn between the desire to capture how I feel in words or go to Spotify and create the musical playlist the author has created for her characters, to stay in the emotions of the book. I feel such a bittersweet sense of love lost and love found, of reinventing oneself, and building a completely new life. This feeling is so bound up with my own life story, that the ending was particularly poignant. I have been where Arie is, but I’ve also been where Evie is. I have felt that confusing sense of falling in love, when I haven’t fully healed from loss. I have also been that open hearted girl, willing to leap in with both feet in that dangerous all or nothing way, only other ‘leapers’ would understand. I have felt that pain of not being wanted enough, of being the wrong person or even the right person at the wrong time.

Minnie Darke’s book centres on music, mainly in the form of a book that once belonged to the beautiful concert pianist Diana Clare. Diana was greatly in demand and flew all over the world to play and record with different orchestras. Known for her flaming red hair, her signature red dresses and the Converse trainers she preferred to play in wherever she was. The book of music belonged to Diana and in it she’d been writing a love song for her long term boyfriend Arie. Arie was a self-confessed computer geek (in my head he looked like Richard Ayoade) who met Diana at the music academy where she studied, when asked to fix a problem with her computer. They seemed opposites, Diana was mercurial and hard to pin down, whereas Arie was solid and even tempered, but what Diana was trying to show him was that when put together, they were like a pair of musical notes that when played together created perfect cadence. Arie only heard her song once, she played it one night when he brought up the question of why, after seven years together, they weren’t married yet. Diana didn’t feel the same urgency, but played the song to show him how much she felt, when words failed her. Sadly, Arie never hears the song again because the next morning, Diana leaves their home in Australia for a concert in Europe. Her plane, flown by Air Pleiades, disappears into the sea after the cabin fails to pressurise the cabin correctly and all the passengers and crew succumb to hypoxia.

Arie feels like their time together is like the part written song, never finished just left hanging in the air without a conclusion. He retreats into his world, living in their house where Diana’s Steinway still sits in the bay window. He still observes festivals with Diana’s distraught mother Belinda such as their apricot jam making day, bonfire night and of course Diana’s anniversary and birthday. There is a beautiful tenderness to the way Arie treats this broken hearted older woman, whilst knowing a time will come when he disappoints her, by making changes or maybe one day moving on. For now he’s okay where he is, treading water. Until one day a few years later he notices that the Air BnB next door is occupied again. He notices the young woman with her Cleopatra dark bob and an easy air of style. This is Evie and one evening, he notices her in the garden. Then he hears a familiar piece of music he’d thought was lost. She’s playing Diana’s song so quietly and tentatively, picking out the chords as if she’s piecing it together by memory.

In fact that’s exactly what Evie is doing because she doesn’t have the music. She heard it being played by a young flautist and cellist as she was leaving Waverley Station in Edinburgh, travelling towards Melbourne. The players were so absorbed in their music and each other, clearly in love. It piques her interest, because she’s walking away from a relationship where she wasn’t loved enough. She has resolved to not be involved with someone ever again unless they truly want her. He must find her and want her as much as these musicians clearly want each other. Darke tells her story through these main chapters that alternate between her and Arie, but there are musical interludes where we follow Diana’s notebook. It slowly wends its way through different people, from different musical backgrounds like classical orchestra to bluegrass. This is such a clever way of following the musical theme, but never forgetting our main pair as they move through the world.

Evie and Arie are possibly perfect together, but does such love come twice in a lifetime? Their tentative friendship is so fragile and I was desperately wiling it to work for both of them. I thought the author handled the emotions of being widowed with such knowledge and care. I’ve been there and have felt every one of Arie’s emotions, but that huge question of moving on is the most pertinent here. When we build a relationship with our in-laws they become our family. For me, and for Arie, that relationship continues after the loss of our partner. I felt that no one understood the enormity of my loss more than my brother and father-in-law, I wanted to continue that relationship with them and keep them as my family, to reminisce and celebrate my husband’s life. Then as time passed and I continued to live, I was very conscious of not upsetting them, respecting my husband’s memory and keeping them part of the new life I was creating. I made mistakes and it added to my pain, the feeling that I’d let them down. Now there is just me and my sister-in-law left and we talk a lot, and try to support each other even from her home on the other side of the world in New Zealand. We keep each other up to date on our children/step-children and reminisce about our husbands (and what a pair of rascals those brothers could be when they got together).

In this book, Arie doesn’t know how to reconcile these two parts of his life; the left behind and the moving on. Perhaps made more complicated, because just like the music Diana leaves behind, there was no real conclusion to her death. One minute she was there and the next, far away, she was gone and there was no funeral. Just the terrible knowledge she was lost somewhere under the sea. It takes Evie’s poetry to express this inbetween place, her talent for just the right words to capture a maelstrom of emotions is similar to Diana’s ability to convert emotion into musical notes. What stands out above everything in this novel is how artistic expression can explain, contain and elevate human experience. Most importantly, in Arie’s case, what comes across so strongly is art’s eventual power to heal.






This is the opening review of the blog tour organised by Random Things Tours