Read Jiles' other books,
looking for book to read while on quarantine - saw this -

… started reading --
Traveled back to 1864, Marshall in East Texas, plantation country

I immediately was in story - losing the war
trying to run from conscription men,
ends up in Geddings' regiment
forms a band that travels together...


Escape modern times and problems
Travel back in time with this book

Very good book! History, romance and vivid descriptions of Texas. The only thing wrong was it ended way too soon! I would have followed these two to the ends of their lives!

Music is a magical tonic that opens the doors of minds and hearts. I was late to the party in reading "News of the World," so when I saw this new book from Paulette Jiles pop up on NetGalley I jumped at the chance to read it before publication. With Simon, the fiddler, we once again are transported to Texas in the aftermath of the Civil War. What I really liked about this book was the tremendous sense of place and time that you get from Jiles in her evocative prose. You can see what Simon sees with clarity and experience the life of a wandering minstrel. His quest to save Doris is ambitious and he does not lose sight of his vision to settle down with her on their own piece of land. We also see bits of what Doris experiences in Captain Webb's household and Captain Kidd makes a cameo appearance. Hurray! As with "News" there are some moments of extreme peril in Simon's journey, and a satisfying ending that goes against prevailing odds. I do think my favorite part was the way Simon describes his escapes into the world of music and the bonds he forms with other musicians along the way. Delightful!

Thank you to Harper Collins and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

My review as posted on Goodreads:
Read as egalley courtesy of the publisher and Netgalley. While NEWS OF THE WORLD will remain my favorite, this novel by Jiles struck me as testament to the power of music and memory. Simon is a fiddler who becomes entangled in the Civil War near its end. His journey through the American South in this period points out all the ugliness that war breeds into society. But a chance encounter with a serving girl/indentured servant will change his life. Captain Kidd, from NEWS OF THE WORLD, has a cameo in this book.

Simon the Fiddler is a window into the post Civil War days in Texas. Hardship came in many forms—yellow fever epidemics, traveling without a military pass, lawlessness and military rule, and basic survival. But goodness transcends these trials, and the two main characters are peft with hope for the future.

In this bittersweet historical novel, a traveling fiddler is forced to enlist in a regimental band in the last days of the Civil War. Afterwards, Simon and his companions travel Texas, seeking gigs and love.

As a fan of NEWS OF THE WORLD, I was looking forward to Paulette Jiles's new novel and it did not disappoint. Once again, she has crafted an evocative, beautifully written historical novel of the American southwest, populated with unique and vivid characters. I won't get into the plot since plenty of other reviewers have done so, but will just say that I found this to be a completely absorbing and satisfying read - just what I needed as a distraction in these challenging times. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read News of the World and loved it. Having said that, I found Simon the Fiddler to be a bit more of a slog. The Texas setting was familiar, as was Jiles' treatment of the Civil War. Set in the wilds of old Texas, this is the story of a good, kind man who would rather be playing his fiddle and thinking about his music. The Civil War was not in his plans. He does not want to be violent and fight. He meets Doris Dillon, an indentured servant/governess from Ireland, who works for the Webb family. Simon and three others put together a musical group of sorts and they earn a meager living playing in saloons and bars throughout Texas. The group lives in poverty and illness, creating their own kind of family. Simon determines he will become a landowner, and Doris will be his wife. Now, how to carry out those wonderful plans he has made.

The story moved more slowly than News of the World. We meet, again, Captain Jefferson Kidd, close to the end of Simon the Fiddler. It would have been nice to hear more from him as part of this story.

Jiles book is beautifully written, well-researched historical fiction set in Texas. For people like me who have adopted Texas as home, it is especially enriching to read about Texas when there were still wide open spaces, wild horses and cattle by the yard, and new cities springing up after the Civil War. The plot is generally strong and Simon, the main character, is humble, sympathetic, resilient, talented, and romantic. Dottie, Simon's love interest, is an Irish lass who loves life and laughter and is intelligent and strong when it counts. The antagonist, a Union military officer, is a jealous bully who terrorizes Dottie and his family, and who never receives the payback he deserves.

At times, the plot seemed a bit static, but soon after something happens to add interest and quicken the pace. Above all, this is a beautiful love story, showing that love can happen in cruel, uncivilized places to people who struggle and don't always feel like they deserve it. Recommended.

For anyone who loves westerns, or historical fiction, or love stories or all of the above. I have so much love for this novel, a follow-up to News of the World but starring Simon the Fiddler in his own tale and adventure.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. It is a thriller, a romance, a history of postbellum Texas. I know it will be very popular.

Great survival story with a period playlist in the background. The end of the Civil War has finally arrived, and in Texas a group of Yankee and Confederate musicians find themselves tasked with providing the music for the night's farewell banquet for the officers from both sides. After they are officially dismissed, the fiddler, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin, finds himself in the company of Yankee drummer boy Patrick O'Hehir who plays bones and bodhran, piper Damon Lessing, Irish tin whistle, who quotes poetry and literature, and Doroteo Navarro, Tejano guitarist, who can conjure meals out of odd ingredients. As the foursome journey through Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, and parts in between, they become a close knit family unit, supporting and caring for one another through the poverty, destruction, and disease which has overtaken postwar Texas. Music was most desirable in all sorts of venues, and with the proper songs for bar halls to weddings, they found the means to survive. Eventually the surviving members of the troupe are able to overcome their fears and fulfill their dreams of love, family, and land.

Simon the Fiddler follows Simon Boudlin and his musician friends as they make their way through war-torn Texas following the American Civil War. At times beautiful and haunting, the plot of this uneven historical novel has the unfortunate tendency to meander to and fro without direction, very much like the protagonist himself. It's darker and more melancholy than News of the World (Captain Kidd makes a cameo appearance) and lacks the focused plot and memorable characters that made that novel a success. Simon is a complex and intriguing character but he isn't enough to carry the floundering plot alone. Although the pace picks up in the later half, a hasty ending brings everything to an abrupt halt. The writing was beautiful, but the story itself lacked cohesion.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

I was a huge fan of NEWS OF THE WORLD and was over the moon to be back in the wilds of old Texas again. This is a story of a good man who doesn't want to be violent (unless you touch his fiddle) but the world doesn't always allow him to stay silent or defenseless. Simon does his best to protect his fellow musicians and earn the love of an Irish governess he falls in love with from afar. He is a gentle soul caught in a violent wind of post-civil war Texas. The story is woven with peppery phrases and soulful ballads with characters you care deeply about. You finish the last page and just want more - it doesn't get any better than that. Every Texan should read this as well as lovers of well written western historical fiction and stories where the kind-hearted hero gets the girl. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

The best kind of historical fiction — a deep, richly painted, description of life in East Texas at the end of the Civil War. It’s an everyday adventure story — not about mythical heroes but about people trying to reclaim their lives in the chaotic aftermath of a devastating war.

Simon Boudlin — the titular fiddler — has simple goals after the war: find a piece of land, marry a woman with similar desires, and make a living with his music. But life after the Civil War is anything but simple. The novel is gritty with detail painting the turmoil of that time with a full sensory experience. While some semblance of government is trying to establish itself and put the country back together again, displaced and ruined people are scrambling to survive and make new lives. From my modern perspective life then was impossibly hard — but in this book it isn’t described in an emotional, complaining way. It just is the way it is. This is the story of people getting on with it — making their way by whatever means necessary, while still not losing their way morally.

Included are beautiful descriptions of music at the time: Simon’s lusting for new sheet music that he can’t afford, the way music draws yearning and memory from the new mash of people from disparate backgrounds, and the business side — how to get gigs, what needs to be played, and how to handle the drunks and disorderlies who insist on disrupting.

If you liked The News of the World, you’ll be just as captivated by Simon the Fiddler (in which, Captain Kidd makes a surprise, cameo appearance!)

Beautiful writing that gets to essences. Some quotes:

“His worrying kept him awake. The country was in chaos, there were no rules, law was a matter of speculation, nobody knew how to buy land or put savings in a bank since there were so few banks, how to get a loan, register a title to land, or legalize a marriage, everybody was dubious about the new federal paper money, there was little mail service, and nobody seemed to know where the roads led.”

“So he lived in the bright strains of mountain music and the reflective, running pool of the Irish light airs that brought peace to his mind and to his audiences; peace soon forgotten, always returned to.”

“Every song had a secret inside. When he was away from shouting drunks and bartenders and sergeants and armies, he could think his way into the secret, note by note.”

“He knew that he did not play music so much as walk into it, as if into a palace of great riches, with rooms opening into other rooms, which opened into still other rooms, and in these rooms were courtyards and fountains with passageways to yet more mysterious spaces of melody, peculiar intervals, unheard notes.”

“His first problem was to find a girl who would fall in love with him despite his diminutive stature and his present homelessness.”

“People always tired him, always had, always would.”

“He was ragged, a man of a defeated army and at the dinner he had played his heart out in a borrowed shirt. In short, very like the Irish.”

“So it’s dog eat dog and Devil take the hindmost. So it has been in human memory, wild places where the only law is the strength of your good right arm.” He lifted his arm and made a bony fist. “That’s how it is in all human memory. ‘Vastness and Age! and Memories of Eld!’ “

“You expect the government and the diplomatic corps to proceed at some foolish breakneck pace! There are substatutes to argy over and rewrite! And meantime the politicians must be paid their stipends and their travel expenses. Become wise, young man, and cynical, and life will be far more understandable.”

Paulette Jiles! Thank you for another great tale with interesting characters! This story was believable and made me feel like I could understand what it was like to live during the post civil war era. The ending was just the kind I like!

Simon is a redheaded fiddler who gets caught up in the Civil War when it's effectively already over. Afterwards, he moves through Texas fiddling for his supper with varying degrees of success. He gets into trouble with the authorities, falls in love with an Irish governess named Doris, and dreams of having his own piece of land and putting Doris on it while he continues to travel and fiddle.

This isn't enough of a story to fill up a novel of over 350 pages. There is no particular cameraderie between Simon and his fellow musicians (mostly the opposite), the romance with Doris is unromantic, and the reader really needs to fall in love with Simon and his dream, and I didn't. Would life with Simon beat the whole governess gig for Doris? Given that their relationship comprises half the plot, this shouldn't be an open question. "News of the World" was at least twice as readable and had infinitely better characters.

The writing is accomplished and confident (I drank a quart of water reading about sailing to Galveston), and the sense of time and place is arresting, but this is not enough to make up for the novel's serious shortcomings. I received an advanced readers copy from the publisher and was encouraged to write a review.

Hauntingly beautiful. Jiles is somehow able to bring Simon and his fiddle to life, so that we hear his music and feel his love for a dark haired Irish girl he has seen only once for a few minutes time. The story is set in south Texas at the end of the Civil War and in the unsettled times following. Jile's research, as always, is meticulous in every carefully drawn detail, but the history is never allowed to overpower the story. I loved Enemy Women and News of the Worldbut Simon the Fiddler is even better.