Sourcebooks Landmark | Published October 6, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
A woman who is losing her hearing suddenly hears the final moments of someone she once knew. It’s a compelling premise, but the execution didn’t fully land for me.
As a teen, Elena was eager to make her mark in the gritty world of punk rock, not as a musician but as a photographer capturing the sound and feel frame by frame. Now a 66-year-old woman living in solitude in Vermont, she wants nothing to do with punk rock, her life in New York, or the memories of one particular day. She’s also losing her hearing, plagued by tinnitus, so it’s stranger still when she starts hearing things.
When a photo of a recently deceased punk rock icon pulls her past into her present, the lure of desperately needed funds brings her long-buried photography to a prestigious NYC gallery. On opening night, she touches a reconstructed room from her punk rock past and hears screams, cries for help, and the final moments of a woman she once knew. As memories rush back, so do pieces of the one day she can’t recall, the day she left New York for Vermont. The voices of the dead are calling out to her, including her former best friend, the one she thought betrayed and abandoned her, and Elena concludes she has to return to the history she hoped to bury.
What worked: The settings and scenes are vivid, and the premise is compelling. I always love a book with a playlist, though I’ll admit punk rock isn’t my jam.
One scene that worked for me: when Elena’s work is installed in the gallery, she is surprised by another installation taking center stage. She is simultaneously attracted and repelled by what is unveiled, a bathroom stall pulled from one of the clubs where the musicians in her photographs played. It seems like just another exhibit, but there is an energy about the walls, something nefarious and sinister.
What didn’t: I never felt a real connection with the characters. The settings were vivid, but something was missing in the character development. I was also a bit exasperated by Elena’s flip-flopping at times. She’s going to ignore the voices. But no, she can’t. Scratch that, the past is the past. But she has no choice! Even once she seemed resolved to listen to the voices of the dead calling out to her, Elena still nearly talks herself out of the next steps, of returning to New York.
Perhaps the pacing wasn’t choppy, but what felt choppy were the time changes. We readers are in the present day, then Elena’s childhood, back to the present day, then the night she fled to Vermont. It was difficult to place the plot points. The continual reminders of her tinnitus also grew a little annoying.
With so much build-up and backstory, the resolution almost felt anticlimactic. I wanted a hint at what comes next for Elena. Would she return to photography? Reach out to others from her past and continue reconciling what was with what might be? Or would she return to Vermont and teaching? The ending as written seemed to leave readers in the dark.
Who it’s for: Punk rock fans who enjoy a moody, atmospheric mystery.
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