Book 1 of The Gift
Historical Fiction
Date to be Published: November 5, 2025
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
But the violin Marthe’s father left her is a constant reminder of the profound bond between them, and it gives her the strength to begin healing. When the Köln Conservatory offers her an unexpected scholarship, she seizes her chance to reach for excellence.
Under the rigorous tutelage of Professorin Wolff, and subjected to predatory harassment by a fellow student determined to destroy both her self-worth and her chances of success, Marthe quickly learns she will need more than motivation and talent to rise to the top.
Filled with heart, wit, and music, The Well-Tempered Violinist is an enduring coming-of-age tale about an artist striving for greatness against enormous odds.
Is There a Message in Your Novel That You Want Readers to Grasp?
The essence of The Gift Book I, The Well-Tempered Violinist, is one young woman’s journey on the artist’s path, and what is required of anyone who is driven to follow that path, particularly in a time and place in which one is unwelcome and marginalized. There were professional women musicians in the early 20th century, but they were outliers; many, many more gifted women were thwarted by societal expectations and prejudice, discouraged or forbidden to pursue music—or any other art—as a profession. The odds against Marthe, Ros, and Berit are enormous. They need thick skins. They need each other. They need the support of family, whether or not that family is their own. They need allies. They need strength, determination, perseverance, and resilience. Most of all, they need courage in the face of opposition, prejudice and rigid tradition. I’ve tried to show both their struggle and their courage.
I think Oma Judith,
Ros’s grandmother, says it best: Never be afraid to kick a stupid rule in
the teeth. (Later she adds, Just don’t be surprised when it kicks back.)
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Have you ever been in a cave—not near the entrance—and turned your headlamp off? That is the darkest dark I’ve ever been in. A lot of writing this story felt like I was in that cave with only the very tiniest headlamp. I could only see a single step ahead, maybe enough to write the next line, or think of a possibility for where to go next.
I did have what one of my writing teachers called “islands”: a few scenes I thought would take place at particular points, and so I wrote those, and then, inching through the dark cave with my tiny headlamp, I tried to connect the islands. As often as not, what happened between islands changed the islands themselves, but that was fine; the main thing was to get there.
Another metaphor for the process is building up an oil painting with layer upon layer of thin, translucent paints to get to the final level of complexity and inner luminosity. Every layer adds something to the finished work.
Also, the logistics of a story of this magnitude are daunting.
The Gift quadrilogy includes a lot of characters, several families, and unfolds
over a substantial period of time. So, there’s an abundance of personal
histories and dates. I ended up making family trees. I made a spreadsheet so I
could keep track of what was happening to whom and when. It was all way too
much for my unassisted brain.
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
The
Well-Tempered Violinist
is my debut novel. So, I guess it’s my favorite, so far. Like I said, The Gift
is a quadrilogy, a story that takes four books to tell. When I wrote The Gift,
I kept it in smaller parts as long as I could, so I could find things when I
had to add foundations, subtract dead ends, or modify scenes based on whatever
came earlier or later. I wrote it as one story. When I finally put the parts
together I was appalled—that’s not putting too strong a spin on it—to see how
long it was. Kind of horrified, really. I had no idea. At the same time,
people often asked, what’s your book about? And I had a very hard time
telling them, because it seemed to be about so many different things.
Separating the books made me realize that each book really was really about
something different. So I was glad I had to break it up, and also cut about a zillion
words out of it. The Gift is far better for all that surgery.
If you had the chance to cast your main character from Hollywood today, who would you pick and why?
I have no idea.
Ideally a brilliant young woman violinist who is also a great actress. Any
suggestions?
When did you begin writing?
When my younger child was graduating from high school in
2013, I was looking around for something new to learn. I decided against trying
to re-start piano lessons—45 years is too long to let an art practice go. The
frustration always defeated me. For the same reason I decided against trying to
re-learn drawing and painting; also, that path leads to a real inventory
problem, namely a house full of unsatisfactory paintings that nobody wants. I
decided to learn something new. I always enjoyed writing but had never studied
it, so I signed up for classes at my local community college, a great program,
great teachers, and a tremendous value. I would recommend community college to
anyone. One class per semester, and eight years later, I’d taken everything
they had as many times as I could. And then we had a pandemic. Writing gave me
something to hold onto, a reason to get up in the morning and a way to stay
sane, one step at a time through that very dark cave with that very tiny
headlamp. I didn’t call it writing a book—too intimidating. I called it playing
with my imaginary friends and let people think what they wanted. My last class
had been novel-writing, and these characters had wandered into my head and
taken up residence there. They were clearly not going anywhere until I had told
their story, and possibly not even then. I suspect I will have them with me
always. It’s fine. They’ve become part of my family, even if I did make them
up.
How long did it take to complete your first book?
The Gift had its
origin as a short fiction piece for a class in 2014. It felt rather skeletal,
even though it was still over the word limit. (Sorry, Ryan!) Then it sat around
until I needed a novel project in 2019 and I decided to expand it. I wrote all
four books in the quadrilogy, thinking it would be one book and then being very
surprised, and had beta readers and revised it several hundred times and cut a
zillion or more words out of it (it was still long), and submitted Book I to
Acorn Publishing in the fall of 2024. So call it five years for the whole story,
to the point of submitting it.
Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?
No one in particular. I always loved to read. I read incessantly growing up. I loved the classic children’s stories when I was little: Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh (NOT Disney the Pooh!), Freddy the Pig by Walter R. Brooks. Also some very old stories my mother had had as a child: The Hollow Tree Stories by Albert Bigelow Paine, with their original illustrations. At the end of fourth grade my teacher gave me my first Nancy Drew. It was the modernized, more formulaic version, but I didn’t know that, and I devoured the whole series. At around the same age I discovered C.S. Lewis, The Narnia Chronicles. I read all of these over and over again. I discovered classic science fiction in junior high: Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke. Tolkein, too, the Lord of the Fantasy Writers, and also Dorothy Sayers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and their immortal creations, Lord Peter Wimsey and Sherlock Holmes. To this day I return to some of these books occasionally, like comfort food. Yes, I know how the stories go, but the pleasure of re-experiencing a story you’ve been imprinted with goes beyond the narrative arc into the pure pleasure of the voice and skill of the author.
University, graduate school, architecture school, my
internship years—all these got seriously in the way of reading fiction, but I
eventually got back to the library when I became a full-time parent. And I
always liked to write. Even as I was writing The Gift I wasn’t thinking of
publishing it. I just wanted to see if I could tell the story.
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
I love getting the first draft down—what I call the hairball draft, because it’s something you just sort of cough up. It’s so tangible, there on the page, even if you know there’s all sorts of stuff wrong with it. I love giving myself permission to be imperfect, even terrible. Because I can fix it the next time through. Probably. And if I go through it over and over and it never gets any better but only differently bad, I can ditch it and no one gets hurt.
But even more I
love the process of shaping that hairball into something, building sentences
and paragraphs and re-building them until they carry the right nuance and flow
with the right rhythm, wrestling ideas and thoughts into an organic order that
flows and makes sense. I love the feeling, when it finally happens, of
thinking, yes, this is right. In a world where accomplishments are few
and fleeting, that really feels like an accomplishment.
Describe your latest book in 4 words.
Perseverance.
Resilience. Courage. Gifts.
Can you share a little bit about your current work or what is in the future for your writing?
With three more books in The Gift quadrilogy left to publish, that’s my focus for the foreseeable future. A book a year, pretty much as far out as my imagination runs. They are all written; I’m preparing Book II for submission now. Working title: No Path Through The Forest. It is the story of the next phase of Marthe’s life, the turbulent second decade of the twentieth century. Let’s just say it’s not an easy decade. I hope your readers will enjoy Book I and be on pins and needles for Book II! And Books III and IV after that, of course!
When Book IV is in the rear-view
mirror . . . who knows?
The Well-Tempered Violinist, Book 1 of The Gift series, is her first novel.
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Facebook: Barbara Thornburgh Carlton, Writer
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