Virtuosity 

A 17-year-old prodigy, Carmen is all about the violin. Her mother-manager runs her home-schooled life, which is insular, eerily stable and entirely focused on her being the best she can be. Carmen has never considered that life could be any different, and has never wanted it to be; with the crucial Guarneri competition coming up, ultimate success and prestige beckon.

The one thing standing in her way is Jeremy King, the only competitor who might just beat her. Temptation leads her to sneak out and see him play and while she was afraid that he might be better than her, the reality is a whole lot worse: she sees someone who might just be the only person to understand her. But even what might be love can’t change the fact they both are desperate to win, and that a dream come true for one will mean the utter downfall of the other. There’s a reason why these people are called soloists – when life is stretched as taut as a string on a Stradivarius, obsession bites harder, betrayal cuts deeper, and secrets refuse to be contained.

This meeting marks the start of Carmen’s emergence from a numbing cocoon into the sprawling mess of a wider life, complete with its choices, emotions and pitfalls, as the hairline fractures in Carmen’s outlook that have been plastered over with medication and dedication threaten to crack wide open.

The forbidden love here is thought-provoking rather than gritty and melancholic and you don’t have to like classical music to appreciate the themes of addiction, control and freedom. The brisk plot keeps you on your toes, and this novel would be brilliant for teens questioning what they want in life, affirming that while change, growth and emotion come with a price, some things have to break in order to be reformed into something better.