1.5, rounded up to 2 stars. Three Muses is a love story, or at least it's supposed to be, but to me, it felt very flat. Martha Anne Toll's prose is, in one word, flighty -- it flits from concept to concept, moment to moment, emotion to emotion. It's light, ephemeral -- not necessarily bad, but too light, in my opinion, for what it supposed to be a moving, tragic love story. The novel deals with a lot of tragic events and themes; John is a Holocaust survivor still working through the trauma of singing for his family's killer, Katya lost her mother at a young age and was groomed by Boris Yanakov since she was a teenager, et cetera. However, in less than 300 pages, the novel only skims these themes on a surface level but doesn't quite dive in; we are meant to feel the tragedy simply by virtue of these events being tragic. None of the emotional moments landed like I'm sure they were intended to, and by halfway through, I was finding myself incredibly bored.

The fact that I found Katya decidedly unlikeable did not help. Rule one of any romantic piece of media is that your audience has to like the leading characters, and I did not like Katya. While I felt for her, especially her feelings of being trapped in a relationship with Boris Yanakov, I couldn't understand why not once throughout the entire novel did she try to do anything to change that. The novel spends a lot of time focusing on Katya's internal struggle between John and Boris and her inability to disentangle her life and dreams from Boris's tutelage, but she never mentions any of this to either John or Boris. Boris is certainly not a good person, but how could Katya know exactly what Boris would feel and say about her conflicting thoughts if she never expressed them? I suppose this was meant to enhance how tragic the story was, the fact that there were these unspoken barriers between her and John, but it made no sense to me. The tragedy felt contrived, just like everything else in Three Muses.

I am rounding up my rating to 2 stars because despite all of this, I do feel that I can vaguely sense what the novel was aiming to be, like a vague outline in the fog. However, a combination of ill-suited prose, conflicting themes, and contrived emotions prevent that outline from taking shape.

THREE MUSES is a lyrical novel composed with a poet's attention to language. The ballet references are particularly detailed and well-researched without bogging down the narrative.

Readers who enjoy multiple points of view will find much to enjoy here as John and Katya experience life in such different ways. I enjoyed seeing how John and Katya's narratives are intertwined.

The strong sense of place helps the reader feel immersed in each scene and the author does a nice job of crafting the novel with the overarching themes of song, discipline, & memory.

Recommended for readers of literary fiction with an interest in history and/or ballet.

The writing is similar to poetry and I love it! I love reading historical fiction, they just make me so emotional, and this book was so beautiful. We follow two very different people who live different lives as they cross paths. This is by no means only a romance novel, it is so much more and I'm happy that I got the chance to read it. 5 stars!

“Three Muses” is a debut novel by Martha Anne Toll. This book tells the story of two people, post WWII, living in New York. There’s John Curtin, who immigrated to the US following the end of WWII who survived by, as a child, singing nightly for the Commandant who murdered his family in a concentration camp. He was welcomed into the home of a Jewish family in NY, who encouraged him to do something with science/medicine. Through flashbacks, the reader is able to piece together John’s heartbreaking story - mainly told through the eyes of a bewildered child but also trying to gain acceptance and understanding as a man (and one who studies the brain). Katya Symanova’s story is about her love of ballet, but also touches upon some of the tragic things in her background (including a parent’s death, a parent’s withdrawal, and grooming by a person she admires). The two characters meet, feel a connection, and together they start a healing and understanding of their lives - but also each other’s life.

As debut novels go, this story started off slowly for me, but I decided to continue reading it. I enjoyed John’s sections more than Katya’s, which I found odd as I took ballet lessons for many years. John’s trying to understand what happened expressed through the eyes of a child I found moving - as children one views the world differently than as an adult. John struggling to understand “American ways” I found touching - quick speech and slang are not always easy to understand. It’s evident that Ms. Toll knows a bit about ballet - from understanding the music to how to choreograph a dance - but maybe the overarching grooming of Katya bothered me. I kinda wish that Katya’s friend, Maya, had bluntly spelled out a few things - even if Katya had denied them, I just would’ve felt like “someone” who cared about Katya had said something directly to her.

I have to say that the writing wasn’t always easy to read - some of the descriptive text took odd turns - with things being phrased awkwardly or more lyrical than I prefer. I did enjoy the epilogue. I wish that I’d enjoyed this book more than I did - I was expecting to prefer Katya’s section more than I did - but it was an interesting idea in general.

DNF at 50%

This is a book that reads like poetry, and that's both good and bad. There are some absolutely beautiful descriptions and I felt like I was transported to France and the other locations this book takes place in, but it also flits too quickly from narrator to narrator without letting us sit or really get to know our two main characters. The themes are compelling, especially the ballerina's POV, and shows us the dark side of a co-dependent relationship and manipulation. However, the lyrical language can get in the way or fully feeling the intensity we should at these scenes.

Overall, Three Muses works better as a very long poem and not as a book.

Martha Ann Toll’s debut novel is beautifully written. Two people from two different walks of life, meet serendipitously, as if the world was aligned for them to connect. The story, of their lives, is told, simultaneously, prior to their meeting and then continues after they have met. The confluence of their first encounter, becomes the epicenter going forward. One, Katherine (Katya), is an aspiring ballerina and my having just attended the NY City Ballet, I especially enjoyed the part of the story line describing the intricacies and hard work, relating to being a ballerina. The other, John (Janko), a holocaust surviver with much PTSD, is trying to find meaning in his life, as a survivor, when his entire family was murdered. The ending is not a fairytale ending, albeit a poignant one. Thank you NetGalley and Regal House Publishing, for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. #MarthaAnneToll, #netgalley, #Threemuses.

Book 33 of 2022 — Three Muses by Martha Anne Toll

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley. It has a publish date of September 20, 2022. I chose the book based solely on the cover which has a ballet dancer. I love stories about the ballet and have read many, both fiction and nonfiction. As an opera singer and a terrible dancer myself, I love seeing the backstage parts of something I have little to no first-hand experience with!

“I love the behind-the-scenes view of the ballet.”

This book centers around Janko, a young Jewish boy and his growth following World War II and Katherine, a young American girl who becomes a ballet dancer. Janko becomes “John” when he emigrates to America and Katherine becomes Katya as she becomes a solo dancer. Katya’s relationship with her choreographer is strongly reminiscent of Victoria Page and Boris Lermontov from the 1948 film “The Red Shoes”.

Upon starting this book, I felt it was more a history and less a fictional story. It isn’t until about 60% of the way in that the reader sees the connection between the two main characters.

There are lots of ballet terms throughout, as there should be for realism in the dance world. If you are unfamiliar with these terms, YouTube and Google will be your best friend. This will help to paint the picture of the rigors of ballet training at the highest level.

I finished this book in a single day after I got to the halfway mark. The growth of the two characters is absolutely riveting. Watching John face his past and start to grieve is both heartbreaking and liberating. I felt it even more deeply due to the continued Ukrainian conflict.

I highly recommend this book for lovers of historical fiction, dance, and a deeply involved love story between two polar opposites who find themselves magically in each other’s orbit. Brava to Ms. Toll for a magnum opus. The afterword describes the years of work and research that went into writing this book and boy, does it show!

5⭐️/5

#ThreeMuses #NetGalley

Thank you, NetGalley for giving me the chance to discover this story. Three Muses follows two characters with only one thing in common, music. Yet they couldn't have more different perspectives about it. The year is 1963 and each of them faces their past in New York. Katherine is a ballerina, the only life she knows is the stage. She works hard to make her dancing the most important thing in the world. She's been practicing since her mother's death when she was 10. Ad ever since she has had only time for practice and nothing else. John is a refuge from the war. As a jew in Germany, he had to live in a camp. Where he survives in the house of a general because of his singing voice. After the liberation when he learned that his family had been killed he could never sing again. He associates music with guilt, with sorrow, with pain. Yet when he by chance sees a ballet he falls in love with the performance of a ballerina.
As they move they force each other to see beyond themselves and face the past. A beautiful story about music, dance, and facing who you are. A tale filled with strong fillings.

In 1960s New York, trainee psychiatrist John and prima ballerina Katya begin a love affair.

John came to the city as a refugee from war-torn Germany, changing his name to leave behind the pain of loss. Katya too changed her name, at the behest of the company’s choreographer for the best chance of success. Just one way she has given herself over to his guidance and control.

Despite its heavy subject matter, I found Three Muses to be an easy read. The chapters are short and Toll never dwells on any one subject for too long. The action moves quickly from a concentration camp in Germany, to life in New York, although the trauma John suffered as a child stays with him every day as an adult.

Toll describes the ballet in detail, at points every technical step and exactly how the dancers are feeling. And I liked the echo of the subject of the Three Muses ballet – Song, Discipline, and Memory – in John’s life.

A testament to the powers of love, memory, and devotion, Toll guides the protagonists of the novel through their lives, allowing them to heal and find their destinies.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

I think I had too high expectations for this book. It just didn’t captivate me the way I had hoped. I wanted the characters fleshed out more. We never do find out the backstory of Boris. Ending was too quickly wrapped up. I wasn’t moved by the story of the holocaust or the love story.. Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I still do not know what to say about this book, because honestly, nothing I say will do this book justice. It was beautifully written with a dual narrative that reads like poetry, it is so stunningly lyrical it is mind blowing, the story was emotive and the characters were well developed. I loved it and I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.

The biggest strength of this books is the beautiful writing, particularly how it described and really allowed you to picture Katya dancing on stage, but also the suffering the two protagonists, Katya, and John especially, experienced. The author does a great job fleshing out the characters, allowing us to get to know them and how they’ve come to be the people they are, so we can understand the decisions they make. Considering how long the book spans over, from the protagonists’ childhood to when they meet in their adulthood, it is very well paced. It is quite hard for a book to keep my attention (especially considering I’m diagnosed with ADHD), but the book managed to pack so much, not dwelling on anything for too long, but long enough for us to understand the impact and feel for the characters.

The ways at which the events of the Holocaust were explored through the lens of John, the only one to survive out of his family, and how he’s grappled with trying to move forward, dealing with his survivor’s guilt after having to “entertain the enemy” just to stay alive, and really learning to forgive himself. It introduced an interesting perspective. I do have gripes with John’s character though, I felt as if his personality was quite bland, and often gave of generic “nice guy” energy, paired along with some objectifying descriptions of women’s bodies (specifically Anna who he occasionally hooked up with) while also telling his friends that they should “treat women as people!”. Thankfully, these descriptions weren’t excessive, but it did happen quite early on in the book which put me off. Nonetheless, I did end up connected to his character, especially his relationship with Katya.

Katya’s storyline also introduced very potentially interesting subject matters and themes. She had looked up to and worked under Yankov since she was an impressionable child and he took advantage of it. It is very clear that she was groomed. How she struggles to define her relationship with him, and seeing her guilt for being with John when Boris “made” her, or how he could have loved her; it was all written perfectly. I had fully expected it to be addressed and explored, and to see Katya finally free herself from that abuse from this older man who was supposed to be her authority figure and find happiness. However, we never get to see that. While I know that many times, those who are groomed never get that closure, but I feel it was important to see it addressed. The most we see it framed as a negative thing by other characters was by her best friend Maya simply calling him a gross geezer and John being envious. That especially frustrated me that John was more concerned that she “cheated” when he also recognised that Yankov has had authority over her most her life and was clearly taking advantage of her. That is really what disappointed me with this book, more so since I actually really liked Katya as a protagonist and how she was characterised. I thought she was a very strong lead with clear ambitions, but also flaws.

I did feel adequately content with the ending, despite how bittersweet it was– I think it suited the tone of the book. Despite its flaws, I do think it is beautifully written and has so much to say.

“To dance was to live. To till motion; to impart the joy that welled up every time she took to the stage, her body the vehicle for her art. The lights were blinding. As the music intensified, she skimmed the energy from the audience to breach another dimension. Transcending reason, she danced through raw emotion and spun toward a new center”.

…..a beautiful novel that spoke to me from the moment I first learn about it…..
and it didn’t hurt that more than four of my favorite authors highly endorsed this debut novel.
But….I would have read it anyway - without those endorsements.

We meet John Curtin …
When he was a boy, in 1948, growing up in Mainz, Germany, a Jew, he was called Janko…..later Johann (to sound more German - trying to survive the horrors of the Holocaust) …
His Mutti often called him Jankele.

But now as an adult in 1963 ….(where the start of this novel begins)….
John is simply John ….(an all-American name his ‘new’ American family called him) — after leaving Germany….after the loss of his family: Mutti, Papa, and little brother Max.
John was living in New York - in 1963 … a new psychiatrist. He had just arrived in Paris to attend a seminar— “World Congress on Psychiatry and Mental Health.

John was given a ticket to attend a Ballet performance. The New York Ballet was dancing “Three Muses” in Paris. ….Boris Yanokov, choreographer’s breakout work.
Katya Symanova was the elegant graceful star dancer.
John was entranced. He thought she was magnificent.
A complete stranger in town and to Katya Symanov…. At the end of the performance, he gave her a bouquet of white roses.
For Katya — she remembered that night — The evening that she had a feeling that somebody in the audience had really understood her. Had really heard ‘her’. Just one of those ‘odd’ powerful feelings that occasionally a person feels.

This novel weaves soooo beautifully together the fragility of life — art - discipline - memories- love - loss - death - hope - despair — choices - dance - control -
the four corners of stage > of our personal lives, and humanity….

As I kept reading - with pure pleasure…..i was struck with how ‘lovely’….really beautiful the writing was….
while at the same time — like building to an crescendo ….the story in this novel kept gradually increasing its intensity.
I was in tears twice towards the end.

Wonderful debut novel!

A little about the author:
Besides being a novelist, she is also a book reviewer, essayist, and social justice advocate. She won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted fiction and is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing on September 20th, 2022.
She is a reviewer for NPR books, the Washington Post, Pointe Magazine, The Millions, and elsewhere.
Martha graduated from Yale college and received a law degree from Boston University school of Law. She is married, lives in Washington DC and she and her husband have two daughters.

In my opinion AN AUTHOR is BORN….with this first novel from Martha.
She’s a pro …..nothing feels ‘newbie’.

I could share much more about this book and include dozens of excerpts….
but I’ll just leave one…..
Hoping this book finds a wide range of readers.
It’s a real treasure to discover a new talented author…..who completely engaged me in this dreamlike world.

Boris Yanakov was the man whom Katya Symanova devoted her life and art.
“He was her teacher, mentor, lover, and artistic partner”.
“Her personal life was apparently besides the point; or more accurately, he was her personal and public life, he was her career. He had put art above all else, forgetting—or denying— that great art is the triumph of the human spirit, and that the human spirit depends on love”.

Toll employs the elements of the three Muses--Song, Discipline, and Memory--in weaving together a dual narrative that emerges as a gem of a novel. Dual narratives--two stories of terrible loss--are brought to resolution by the melding of the elements of the Muses through mellifluous prose and poetry. This is a novel that should not be missed.

'Three Muses' by Martha Anne Toll is a neat piece of historical fiction, that follows two main characters: Dr. John Curtin, formerly Janko, a man whose memories take him back to the time of the concentration camps in Germany, and how he was forced to sing to survive. Music evokes his worst memories. Katya Symanova is a flourishing ballerina, working under one of the best choreographers in the ballet world, and her one true love seems to be performance. This is the story of how the lives of a dancer and a man who is pained by music intersect, but also run parallel.

Firstly, I would like to commend the author for writing such compelling characters. A side character named Maya, of course, sarcastic and enthusiastic as she is, was my favourite through the book. Katya and John were also immensely complex, and all the others who revolved through the story made important contributions to it. This is a story driven greatly by its characters, and the author does a good job in reflecting that.

Martha Anne Toll's love and knowledge for dance really shines through the book. Katya's perspective is by far the most interesting, just because I have never come across such passion for ballet in writing. A dance form completely detached from my life, I found myself being intrigued by the way the choreography, the movements, and the settings were described.

The story is something that is really lovely and quite original, not quite romance, but also how can there be passion for dance with romance? It brings together worlds that I, as a reader, have not encountered together before this.

The part where the story really loses out for me is the writing. The beginning of the book is lackluster, and it takes quite a while to fall in step with the narration. Many parts are overwritten with description, and there are quite a few examples littered through the story of showing-not-telling, which I thought was slightly unfortunate, considering that it pulled you out of the memories of the characters. When words like "wending" or "plangent" were used, that don't normally show up in books, I had to take a moment to go look them up, but even then, they felt quite choppy in my head as I read to myself. Some examples of the "lay-everything-out" kind of sentences for me were:

1. "John felt calm, bathed in a pleasant sense of mystery." I don't know where the mystery came from, but the calm was already established by the setting.
2. "John was entranced." How did I know John was entranced? Not by this writing, but by every other action that he did before it being announced that he was entranced.
3. "He knew where his former neighbours were gone - they were murdered." It was already insinuated a bunch of times that the people in John's life were murdered. Spelling it out does nothing except for assuming that the reader hasn't kept up with everything before this.
4. "Katherine felt sad; the lesson was over." We know!
5. "The rice pudding tasted like warm milk and sugar." What... else does rice pudding taste like? This could've been a moment where there could've been a nicer metaphor, but we get to know that rice pudding, whose primary ingredients are milk and sweetener, taste like... well, milk and sugar.

This may seem a bit nitpicky, but it constantly took me out of the stream of thoughts that were otherwise so well laid out. The best part about the writing though, was that it progressively got better over the course of the book. I have little to no complaints about the middle section, and the epilogue was really something stunning, but if in the establishing section there are so many little distractions, it's a bit hard to keep your focus.

Three Muses is a novel with tons and tons of potential as a story, and I'm excited to see what the author comes up with next!