Beth Collier, up-and-coming composer, is shamed into acting as accompanist for her mum’s amateur choir. 

And yes, they have a lot to teach her. There’s no monopoly on talent, though; Alice, her brain-injured twin, has quite a voice, and leads her own band. But as the truth about the sisters’ upbringing unfolds, Beth confronts big questions about her own identity.

Genre: Contemporary | Humour | Disability Fiction
Publisher: Ah But Books

Set in the months before lockdown, against the backdrop of the bars and church halls of a great musical city – where everyone makes art and joking is a serious business – this novel takes you back to where the music started. In the heart.

With amateurs and professionals from formal and informal musical traditions, the playlist ranges from Rachmaninov to Mersey Beat. Alongside music, there’s the word, and Beth will have to overcome some issues there… The thrills and spills of language – loved, shared, sometimes lost, often misunderstood, but never owned – are constant themes, as a wide range of characters from different cultural tribes stumble around in search of what connects them.

My Review

Maybe it’s because I’m not a professional musician (or any sort of musician), that I find Beth’s constant negativity and wittering quite annoying.  I wish I had her talent. She’s envious of her disabled sister, snobby about working with amateurs, but too full of self-doubt to put herself out there.

Beth is not a performer, she’s a composer, but when she doesn’t win a competition everyone thought she had in the bag, she starts to question her life. Then her mother asks her to play the piano for her community choir, the Lyceum Singers, and she reluctantly agrees. She’s known most of the singers all her life, they are lovely, but they are still ‘amateurs’, and she’s not too keen on the conductor. Until he leaves and is replaced by Theo. Then everything changes. Her ‘proper’ job is working for renowned composer Petra Laing at the university.

When Beth and Alice were five years old, Alice had a terrible accident which left her in a wheelchair, but also with a degree of brain damage. She’s much feistier than Beth and never turns down an opportunity. Alice would say, ‘Go for it, who cares about the rules.’ She says yes to everything. Good on you Alice. That’s my girl. Beth would be ‘Ah, but what if?’ Alice has her own band called Sky Blue Pink. They play covers and busk on the street. Alice is a brilliant singer. Beth is afraid of ‘words’. She likes her music ‘pure’.

As an aside, her ex Jaz Ander (I call him Jazz Hander) moved out after they tried living together for two weeks. She couldn’t stand him in her ‘space’ and constantly going on about the book he was writing. He found her annoyingly obsessive about her ‘space’. Then he wrote a piece for the Echo (he’s a journalist) about her relationship with her mother, which became known as the ‘Tiger Mother’ article and they both went ape. I don’t blame them.

Being a ‘Southerner’, the Liverpudlianisms (is that even a word?) went a bit over my head (there’s even a reference to people from the South of England at one point), as did a lot of the musical references, but don’t let any of that put you off. Amateurs is warm, funny and entertaining, and should be savoured over coffee (or tea) and biscuits. With friends, or even by joining a community choir (I did – just avoid the elitist chamber music) and sing your heart out to something like Les Mis or Phantom of the Opera. And if your choir needs a ‘kick up the butt’ (mine definitely didn’t), let them know discreetly by introducing new ideas.

Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #Amateurs blog tour

About the Author

“I was born in Liverpool, so I grew up with the belief that you could laugh at just about anything, starting with yourself. My earliest attempts at fiction were bedtime stories for my brothers and sister, which carried on long after they’d fallen asleep. Too much Chekhov at an early age meant I ended up studying Modern Languages instead of Eng Lit. I had to earn a living and found I loved teaching. I’ve worked in the Midlands, Essex and Dorset in a variety of roles, publishing teaching materials along the way.

“In fiction, I’m drawn to issues that trouble, inspire or amuse me. And I love language, so I might just play with that. I feel a responsibility to reflect the way we live now, rather than leaving it to some future historian. It’s not just a question of ‘writing what you know’ – in fact, it’s a good idea to write about what you want to know. But I have this delusion that in reflecting on the present, we help shape the future. It’s hard to find an art form which is better adapted than the novel to examining the light and shade of human experience, and taking us beyond events into the thoughts and feelings of others.

“I’m interested in real people, who find themselves in real situations. Pace, surprise, emotion, humour, crisp description – these are all things I aim to create. And to have fun doing it.”
Author’s Website: gilloliverauthor.com

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