As The Music Lesson begins, we meet Patricia Dolan, waxing poetic about the stolen Vermeer that she has been entrusted as guardian over. Daughter of a policeman who instilled in her a deep belief in the cause of a united Ireland, Patricia introduces us slowly to the circumstances that led her to the small remote cottage in which she is sequestered.
Patricia is an art historian, bored with her quiet existence and trying to get over a failed marriage. Enter her dazzling distant cousin, Mickey O'Driscoll, who sweeps her into a whirlwind romance interlaced with her tutoring him about famous works of art.
Patricia quickly catches on that Mickey is not a budding art lover, but an IRA activist bent on stealing an important painting -- one owned by the queen herself -- and burning it as a statement against the British.
Alone with the stolen painting in a remote cottage in Ireland, Patricia finds her own inner resources that pull her out of a despairing past, away from her desperate present, and propelling her toward a future she didn't think she'd be able to face.
Author Katherine Weber paints a vivid portrait of the interior landscapes of her protagonist, giving us a lush, emotional tale of growth and discovery.
