Melody’s Key- Review

Synopsis of Melody’s Key by Dallas Coryell

“His eyes settled on her…piercing green embers of flame that revealed the ferocity of his pain and passion, yet still shrouded him under veils of ever deepening mystery that made every ounce of her ache to unravel him.” 

Tegan Lockwood’s dreams were dead, sacrificed on the noble altar of duty before they ever had a chance to live. Her entire existence was disappearing into the abyss of apathy as she labored her days away keeping her family’s struggling business alive. There would be no emotion, no color, no beauty in her life. That is, until a mysterious visitor begins to draw her out of the darkness of her past towards something that will challenge the boundaries of her world, and unlock the most deeply held secrets of her heart.

 

 

Firstly I’m going to start with the parts of this book that I enjoyed, as there were quite a few of them.

1. Tegan’s character. I think she is one of the most well rounded characters I’ve seen come to life in a novel. She had very believable character traits, her anxiety and her crazy reactions to Mason, cause sometimes boys can be dumb and girls get very upset, just like Tegan. It’s not that I necessarily like Tegan, or find her a character I would love to be besties with, but she was very real and I dig that.
2. The love letters! Omg the thought of finding a true hidden love story in my attic… How fascinating would that be? I love how Tegan researched and explored the story, because it’s exactly the kind of mystery I would love to solve myself.
3. The setting. Lymington sounds so incredibly beautiful and its made even more amazing by Coryell’s gorgeous descriptions.
4. The musical aspects. As a musician himself, Coryell entwines his love of music throughout the whole story and its beautiful. I love how dedicated both Mason and Tegan are to their music and we also get to see an insight into the industry which is pretty cool.

 

And some of the aspects of this story that I didn’t love/ needed some work on:

1. As lovely as most of the descriptions are, unfortunately the dialogue was mostly pretty cringe and not overly representative of how people actually speak to each other. Also having the book set in England it’s not a good idea to have your English characters use American terms such as ‘jerk’ and ‘frat boy’, and I don’t really think I’ve ever heard an English girl call her father ‘papa’ either.
2. One issue I did have with the whole ‘broken dream’ theme in this novel, is that in Britain you can pretty easily get a loan to go to university. Maybe Tegan couldn’t go to the States to the uni she wanted to go to there, but her dreams were by far not dead and she would have had many many options available to her. However the theme did seem to work more with Mason.
3. I loved the letters and the romance of Jonathan and Violet, but it wasn’t in it as much as it could have been. I would have enjoyed going on the journey of discovery with Tegan, but we are just told about the discovery she already made.
4. Generally one of my biggest issues with the story is actually a compliment to the author, as overall I just wanted more! I wanted more with the letters, I wanted to see more of her family’s interactions, more of the guests staying at the house and mostly I wanted more Simon, how were we never told who his mystery lover was?? I want answers.

 

Overall once I got into this story I really enjoyed it, the romance was well developed and who doesn’t love a happy ending? Also going back to the musical aspect, when reading the lyrics to all the songs I thought they were a little cheesy, but they become much more beautiful when you hear them sung, so if you do read this book, definitely give Dallas Coryell’s YouTube channel a listen as well.

 

Charlotte Dodd.