The Music Shop
An uplifting, heart-warming love story from the Sunday Times bestselling author
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4.4 • 140 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
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
RACHEL JOYCE'S NEW NOVEL, THE HOMEMADE GOD, IS OUT NOW.
Rachel Joyce, Sunday Times bestseller, May 2025
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Joyce (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry) has a winner in this deceptively simple love story about Frank, owner of a London hole-in-the-wall music store selling vinyl records in 1988. Adamant about not selling cassette tapes or CDs, Frank is a loner raised by an eccentric but loving mother who taught him to cherish all kinds of music. His extraordinary gift is knowing the precise song people need to hear at a particular time in their lives, and his musical selections have miraculous results. Frank's small circle of friends own shops on this out-of-the-way street: Maud, who secretly pines for Frank, has a tattoo parlor; ex-priest Father Anthony sells religious artifacts; the twin Williams brothers run a family funeral business. Frank's life is upturned when a mysterious stranger, Ilse Brauchmann, appears outside his store and promptly faints. The magical trajectory of Frank and Ilse's relationship is nicely balanced against the thread about a threatening real estate company that wants to destroy Frank's tiny store. Joyce's odes to music from Aretha Franklin and J.S. Bach to Puccini and the Sex Pistols and the notion that the perfect song can transform one's life make this novel a triumph.
Customer Reviews
Shame about the ending
An absolutely brilliant book until the end.
Obviously had a film in mind as the ending might work there but not for me in the book.
I just loved it!
Like the best hot chocolate you’ve ever had - warm and delicious and food for the soul.
Wonderful read
This book really captures the history and magic of music on vinyl and those people who love it. A great story with a nostalgic look at a time before downloads, when an album was a possession not a computerised file. David Moffitt