A Song Unheard (affiliate link) is the second story of the Shadows Over England series by Roseanna M. White, and delivers even more twists and adventure than the first book did. Opening with Willa Forsythe meeting an mystery employer who is willing to pay handsomely for information that will help the British government win the war, this tale takes Willa from the life she has made for herself to the life God wants for her. Despite her amazing skill with a violin, she thinks that she’s nothing more than a thief abandoned by her parents. She believes her only family is the one she made with other orphans she met in London. Then she travels to Wales to steal a cypher key and meets a man whose world just got ripped away from him when Germany invaded Belgium.
Lukas De Wilde spent the last decade thinking more about himself than anyone around him. Only his parents and sister managed to pierce inside his heart, but after his father’s death, he pulled away from them too. With Germany’s occupying his homeland, Lukas risks his life to find his mother and sister, only to end up in Wales with a bullet in his shoulder. He’s supposed to play with a Belgian orchestra to raise relief funds for their people, but his heart can’t find the music without his family. Then he visits the orchestra’s patronesses and meets their captivating house guest, Willa. She intrigues him because she looks at the world more like his sister would, critically evaluating it piece by piece. He gapes at the unbelievable talent she reveals with his violin and convinces her to spend time with him for the sake of the music. Yet, he learns that something inside him has changed.
Margot, Lukas’s sister, intermingles her struggle facing the German occupation of Belgium. She and her mother try to hide their identity because their enemies also want the cypher key. Things get sticky when a German general stays in the same house. Margot, a brilliant 14-year-old, is forced to hide her genius. Everything comes to a head when Lukas returns to Belgium to get his family to safety.
Willa and Lukas surge through the story as two dancers circling each other until they finally reach the one central key that could allow them to build a life together forever. Their choices leave many scars, but God is the Healer. After individually letting God heal their wounds, Willa and Lukas finally accept that a future together is better than one apart.
Roseanna M. White pulls together details from the first months of the Great War when Germany tried to push through a tiny country with a tiny army. Instead, Belgium pushed back long enough for England and France to rally troops for a counter push. Amidst all of this, many families in Belgium and northern France lost their homes and were uprooted when their towns were destroyed. Refugees poured into England, but this also made it possible for enemies to sneak into the country. With “A Song Unheard,” Roseanna intertwines history with a story of possibilities. She paints a fascinating picture of what it could have been like to live at the start of this global war, and closes it with a realization that the most important aspect of life is devotion to the Savior, no mater who you were beforehand.
If you’ve read this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. There are many more books by Roseanna M. White that might spark your interest too. Happy reading!
Other great stories by Roseanna M. White:
A Name Unknown (affiliate link) – first book in the Shadows over England series where Willa’s sister, Rosemary is tasked to locate proof that a prominent British author is a German spy
The Number of Love (affiliate link) – Lukas’s sister, Margot, faces a challenging cypher that could save her friend’s life, but someone tries to kill her family to stop her. First book of The Codebreakers series
