Book Description (from Amazon.co.uk):

Jyothi is a child of Bombay’s streets, with a faint memory of past happiness: green hills at dawn, a high light room flooded with music. a boy's candid gaze. A charitable Western couple whisks her away from the city's chaos, danger, and filth. They give her a comfortable home, a first-class education, a precious half-violin.

Yet Jyothi finds herself an outsider, locked up in a lonely world of her own. The discovery of her rare gift for music changes everything. Words may never come easily for Jyothi, but music flows from her, exquisite music, music of the soul. The world listens: and the awkward misfit Jyothi becomes the international superstar, Jade.

Fame, it seems, can solve all of her problems. She can use her virtuosity to win the applause of others, stardom to feed her own faltering ego, Bach to win the heart of the man she wants. But all this leaves her unfulfilled.

She must learn that music cannot be a servant; that she must give every bit of herself to the sheer joy and beauty of playing. She must follow music back to her roots...

TBR - reserved for tangledthreads

ETA: posted on 09/05/2006. I've tried a couple times to get into this one, but it just wasn't meant to be ;)

Received in trade from cats-eye today with many thanks! (Especially love the bookplate label in this one!) I haven't read anything by this author before (although the covers are always appealing!) but the story sounds promising, and I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like...

Passed on to a friend.

Left on bookshelves at back of shop.