Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior

In ELLIE AND THE HARPMAKER author Hazel Prior uses alternating narrators - Ellie Jacobs, Exmoor Housewife and Dan Hollis, Exmoor Harpmaker – to tell a story of friendship and growth. In her mid-thirties, Ellie is out walking, mourning her father’s death, and reflecting on her life choices (“My dad once told me it’s not helpful pondering what might have been, because you can’t change that. You can only change what will be.”) She happens upon the Harp Barn and talented craftsman and nature lover Dan Hollis (whose behavior and literal interpretation of events is reminiscent of Don Tillman in Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Effect). Dan gives her a harp so that she can learn to play a musical instrument, but her controlling husband, Clive, insists that she return it. Ellie does, but she secretly starts taking lessons which furthers her own confusion and Clive’s jealousy. 

Throughout, Dan and Exmoor itself are steady poetic presences; Dan says, “The beeches cling onto their dry, coppery flakes of leaves and some of the oaks are snuggled in thick, yellow-green sweaters of moss. But all the other trees stand naked, the last grey tatters of leaves drifting about their ankles.” This debut novel is beautifully written; Ellie and Dan are appealing characters* finding their way, like the rest of us. *(here’s another Dan quote: “Luckily on my own birthday (the twenty-first of May) I am allowed to choose exactly what I want to do. And what I choose to do is nothing. Other people seldom take this option, so their birthdays are fraught with difficulty.”)  ELLIE AND THE HARPMAKER is a LibraryReads selection for August 2019.