Captivating and complex story set in former Czehoslovkia following two women and their relationships as they are inexorably drawn together. Jana has always pined after Zorka, the girl who disappeared. Ten years later Jana works as an interpreter in Paris. Also in Paris is Amiee who discovered her wife Dominique dead in their hotel bed. Alongside this is the chat-room narrative of the similarly named Amy and Dominika, as they speak and fall in love. It is difficult to unpick exactly how the two narratives relate to one alter, are they parallel or alternate stories, but they shed light on one another despite the mystery. Moskovich's writing is hypnotic and serpentine, her writing glimmers and glows, enhanced by the shadows the narrative casts. There's a fairy-tale feeling to the prose, in its darkness and depth.

Very hard to rate. Certainly an interesting novel, but events did become too bizarre for me to invest in. I welcome a lesbian-themed novel from/about the Soviet end of Europe. On these grounds, and for the novel's unique voice, I hope to see people give it a try.

TWs: suicide, sexual assault, rape, physical abuse, racism.

I thought this book was going to be a mesmerising sapphic tale, but sadly it was just very strange and uncomfortable to read. Virtuoso follows two queer couples as their lives intertwine throughout the decades across the US and Czech Republic, and they come to realise what they want out of life. The narrative and plot were both fragmented, meaning it was often difficult to tell which era we were reading about and where the characters were. The pacing was far too slow, and the dialogue didn't captivate me at all. There were several questionably racist remarks throughout the novel, only one of which was challenged, and there was an incredibly disturbing scene where children hold down one of the main characters and molest her. This book is pretty sexual in nature, but it often crosses a line in its content, both in the rape scene, and in another scene where a young girl describes needing to make herself 'more molestable' for older men.

I understand that this book was trying to be literary and subvert genre norms, but on the whole I just found it very uncomfortable and unpleasant to read. Sadly, I wouldn't recommend this one.

Perfectly described as "a dreamlike novel of love and loss in the post-communist diaspora", I am lost in the Czech and Parisian lesbian labrinyths! A heady and intoxicating read for a variety of reasons

This is a very strange book but one I still ultimately enjoyed.

The murder mystery element was fascinating and had me gripped to the page. I also really enjoyed the two different looks into the queer relationships of the main characters. The narrative style was interesting but at times it could get frustrating: the overlapping storylines interweaved a bit clunkily sometimes. I did have quite a few problems however with some content. I am definitely someone who has a strong stomach -- or eye I guess -- when it comes to reading graphic nature, be it sexual or violent, but I think this book went too far. A 7-year-old girl claims she wants to make herself more "molestable" to older men which yikes. I was also put off by the scene where children hold down one of the main characters and actually molest her. Perhaps if these scenes had been challenged in some kind of way it would have been more palatable, but they weren't and I was quite weirded out -- especially for someone who has read very weird literary fiction before.
Still an interesting read and the short chapters make for a fast read too.

A lyrically written, dreamlike, and slightly disorienting novel that follows a group of queer women and how their lives intertwine over the course of many years. The narrative is quite fragmented and seamlessly drifts back and forth in time and between perspectives to slowly reveal the connections between these characters, but, at the same time, this stylistic choice makes it difficult to follow at times. Also, fair warning: the novel includes some quite disturbing sexual content.

After finishing, I thought this book was a bit Daisy Johnson's Everything Under. It's sad, poetic, almost a modern fairy tale. The characters are floating in the story but in a really nice way.
It took me a while to get what's going on. You might want to start reading with 0 information. If so, do not read the rest of this review.

Jana is working as a translator, she is gay and still remembers the weird attraction of her childhood, her friend Zorka, who suddenly disappeared. Jana meets with Aimee, and in the meantime an 16 year old girl from States is chatting in an online chat room to a Czech housewife, Dominika. Their tales are woven together and comes nicely in the end. For me, the star of the story was Zorka, I don't think I will ever forget her mama saying to her, "Zorka, my love, please don't be weird."

I was overjoyed that i received an early copy of this book for review.
This is a small book that packs a punch.
Focusing around 2 characters as the book jumps forwards and backwards after finding a dead body in a hotel. Told in a beautiful dream-like way, you really had to read between the lines as you got to grips with the lyrical and overly descriptive writing.
This wouldn't usually be my type of reading, but I urge to pick it up, even if it is just for the reading experience. It is definitely worth the time.

Virtuoso was certainly a fascinating piece of literature. It had a dreamlike quality that pulled me in and kept me turning the pages. The prose was beautiful and lyrical, and I loved the raw yet emotional portrayal of the women in the cast. This is a novel that requires concentration as we weave from one story to the next and back again, but I enjoyed piecing everything together. This is a book with plenty to say that will leave you pondering for days after you close the final page. That said, I did struggle with the ending. I had expected things to come together a little more cohesively than they did, and I still had a lot of unanswered questions, especially regarding the chatroom romance. Still, it was certainly an exciting introduction to a new-to-me author, and I hope to read more of Yelena Moskovich's work in the future.

Nobody writes like Yelena Moskovich, and this novel is aptly named. I consumed Virtuoso in sips like it was the richest hot chocolate I’d ever had. But at the end I was left with a mildly disappointing bitter taste.

It opens with a woman being found dead in a hotel room by her wife, and works both backwards and forwards from there, with a focus on the lives of two characters. One of them is Aimée, the wife in the opening scene. The other is Jana, who will later cross paths with Aimée. Originally from the Czech Republic, Jana is drawn to an event in Paris after receiving an email from a man who claims he ‘knew your friend, the Malá Narcis’. Aimée and Jana are both given cards inviting them to a meeting at a backstreet bar. Gradually, we learn about their formative relationships: Aimée’s with the woman who will become her wife, Dominique; Jana’s childhood friendship with a fiery girl named Zorka whose nickname, Malá Narcis, means ‘Little Narcissus’.

In an echo of Moskovich's debut The Natashas, the main narrative is punctuated by short chapters which tell another story and/or comment on the main one. Related entirely through chatroom transcripts, it’s also about two women who fall in love. They’re called Amy and Dominika, so the obvious assumption is that this is a twisted, inside-out parallel to the tale of Aimée and Dominique. There are too many differences and odd inconsistencies for that theory to feel wholly correct, yet too many similarities to ignore. Ultimately it begins to resemble a modernised, queered fairytale.

Virtuoso reminded me a lot of a book I really loved a couple of years ago, The Eleventh Letter by Tom Tomaszewski, and it struck me that it could have the same tagline – a love story, a ghost story, a murder mystery. Beautifully worded, dreamlike and labyrinthine, Virtuoso is a many-sided, many-layered puzzle of a novel. Reading it, in terms of both prose and plot, is like watching an intricate and mesmerising dance. It’s surreal and provocative, definitely an oddity, definitely not a book everyone will love or even be able to like, but if you’re in sync with its strangeness, it works like magic.

So for much of its length, this was easily a five-star, best-of-the-year read for me. However, the ending... instead of coming together, it falls apart. I couldn’t figure out a proper explanation for the Amy/Dominika narrative, nor what some of the more fantastical elements (the displaced, ghostly children?) were supposed to represent. I am absolutely ready to attribute this to my failings as a reader – Moskovich’s is a style that demands engagement and patience, and while I was able to meet the author halfway for much of the story, I just think the ending asked too much of me. To go back to the puzzle analogy, the novel as a whole is like an incredibly beautiful jigsaw with pieces missing.

Virtuoso is a stylistic piece of literary fiction that circles around the lives of a number of women. Jana's Czech childhood was interrupted by raven-haired Zorka, a whirlwind who then disappeared. Jana is now an interpreter in Paris for a Czech medical company, where she meets Aimée, who is mourning the death of her wife. And in an internet chatroom, an American girl plots to rescue a Czech housewife from her husband.

Dreamlike in its narrative and in many of its descriptions, the novel moves between the stories and perspectives in a way that, surprisingly, mostly isn't that confusing. When it is confusing, it feels like part of the style and the way that the fluctuations make the boundaries uncertain. The pace can sometimes be slow and sometimes fast, which again makes it feel like a series of dreams. The characters, particularly Jana and Zorka, are engaging, though at times it feels like you drift away from them and then return.

The artsy quality of Virtuoso, created through its style and interconnected narratives, will mean it isn't for everyone. However, this is what makes it stand out, and it manages to make the characters' narratives gripping even when it isn't clear where anything is going.

Virtuoso was a weird novel full of peculiar descriptions and metaphors.
Often you found out more from what was in between the lines than of what was said.

I had a few issues.

I usually don't have a problem with vulgar,sexual or strong language or content, but if a 7-year old girl wants to be more "molestable", then that's just not okay for me.
I was not a fan of the constant change of perspective. I believe the author intended to create some confusion, but the layout and jumping around didn't make it an enjoyable read for me.

Sadly this story wasn't what I expected and I wouldn't recommend it to any of my bookish friends.

Thank you Netgalley and Serpentstail for providing me with an eARC.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this but at no point did I want to stop reading it. I was sucked in by the imagery and descriptions and was completely engaged in wanting to know more about the characters.

‘Virtuoso’ starts off in third person omniscient where the wife gets back to her hotel room and finds the body. There's a dream-like quality to the rushing around of the hotel staff, paramedics and the wife until she has to sign the papers. We've been introduced to Aimée de Saint-Pé.

Then it moves into third person from Jana's point of view. She's just returned Paris from a solo holiday to find she has a translating job at a medical trade fair. The man who has requested her says he knew her childhood friend who everyone called Malá Narcis, the Little Narcissus. At the trade fair, a woman asks for directions and Jana makes the brief acquaintance of Aimée. Staying with Jana's point of view, the story moves to her past, her childhood in Soviet controlled Prague and her first meeting of Zorka, Malá Narcis. We also get Zorka’s point of view of her own family life and friendship with Jana. Sometimes a character’s point of view is in first person, sometimes third.

There’s a jump to a cyber chat room called ‘Girls Only’ where we watch the interaction between 0_hotgirlAmy_0, a 15-year-old in Milwaukee, and Dominxxika_N39, a 35-year-old from Prague.

It's like a collection of string all rolled into a ball. You can see the different strands and you can see where they cross over but it's only when you start unwinding them that you start realising which strings are which. However, there are also strings that are so twisted up that you're not sure why they've been wound onto the ball and you're not sure if you should try and untangle them or just leave them as part of the whole.

It may sound confusing from my description but it’s surprisingly not. There’s a clarity to the writing even when you have no idea where the story is going. I wasn’t bothered by the changes in point of view or by the moving from past to present. It’s filled with unusual descriptions like these:

“Jana folded the feelings into one straight line, which drew itself on her lips.”

“I had veiny-white skin, puddle-coloured hair and flat grey eyes.”

“But even during the brownest polyester years of Communism in Prague, he still lived his life as if it were a French film.”

It’s been a couple of days since I finished reading it and it’s still mulling about in my head. Some of the tangles are still calling me and I may go back to if I can find where they lead.


Book received from Netgalley and Serpert’s Tail for an honest review.

Definitely written in a unique and interesting style, with mesmerising and flowing prose; I can see why it has been compared to the dreamy qualities of Lynchian films.