A complex and vivid portrait of Anna Maria della Pietà ... Constable fills in the gaps, giving this remarkable figure the kind of nuanced origin story that has rarely been afforded by history to female artists ... Constable brings the sensory experience of Anna Maria’s sound to life through visuals.
Constable delivers on that promise beautifully with a multidimensional character who is nonetheless still of her era ... The ambitious undertaking to resurrect Anna with nuance and authenticity has been very successfully achieved with this impressive debut.
One of this novel’s great pleasures is how snugly Constable sits in the ear of a musical prodigy ... This novel about music is fundamentally about silence; the myriad ways in which female authorship has been erased. Constable is strongest in this darker territory, veering away from the cuter depictions of orphan life in Venice ... Constable’s novel never feels heavy on its historic details; instead, they’re weaved into a captivating narrative that’s as tightly tuned as a thriller.
