1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE FIRE CONCERTO
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
THE FIRE CONCERTO is a story about a brilliant female musician lost to history and another woman’s quest to ensure she is not forgotten. It follows a woman named Clara Bishop, a former concert pianist who gave up music when her hand and arm were badly burned in a fire. Clara is working as a bartender in Austin, Texas, when her piano teacher dies, leaving her an unexpected inheritance: an antique metronome with a cryptic message hidden within its box. Clara soon comes to suspect that this is the long-lost metronome of a famous nineteenth-century composer, a priceless object missing since 1885, when the composer was murdered by one of his pupils, an exceptionally gifted woman alleged to have been insane. Clara doesn’t know how her teacher came to possess this metronome or why the teacher gave it to Clara. These questions spur her on a journey to Warsaw, where the composer lived and died, to uncover the truth about what really happened the night of his death.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The idea for my protagonist, Clara, was inspired by a chance encounter I had several years ago with a bartender in Austin. It felt natural after that to set the modern-day storyline there. As I say in the book, Austin “is a city of music, but nothing like the music Clara had devoted her life to.”
The historical story is set in Warsaw. I initially resisted this because I knew I would have to undertake significant research to become familiar with the history of Poland. However, it was critical to the plot that the metronome at the center of this novel’s mystery should disappear for many years and then re-emerge. If one is looking for a place and time in history for a valuable object to vanish, that place is Poland during World War II.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely. I find Clara to be exactly the kind of intelligent, wry, tough-but-soft-on-the-inside person I love to befriend.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Self-possessed, driven, undercover.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I researched widely to write this book and learned so much through the process. Something I’d never heard of before that became an integral part of this novel is the Sonderstab Musik. This was a Nazi initiative to identify valuable musical instruments among the property that was stolen from Jewish families. The especially precious instruments like Stradivarius violins were sent to Berlin. Others were sold to fund the Nazi war machine. Many of these instruments are still lost and have yet to be reunited with their rightful owners.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
When I write the first draft, I don’t edit at all. In fact, I don’t even go back to read what I’ve written. My focus is on getting the story out all the way to the end.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I love a good cocktail, especially a good whiskey cocktail. Oftentimes I select a restaurant based on the cocktail menu.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
My office is a little sunroom off my bedroom. It’s full of light and plants, but it doesn’t have a door, so there is often someone wandering in and asking where the pretzels are or whatever.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Louise Erdrich. She’s an incredible storyteller with a poet’s sensibility. I buy any book she’s written, usually without reading the summary. If she wrote it, I know I’ll like it.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
I grew up in the Reading Rainbow generation, and the idea that “I can go anywhere” via a book has been true for me from the time I was a little kid. For that reason, I think there are probably hundreds of books that have changed my life, each in their own small way. I’ve learned so much about other people, cultures, countries, and historical time periods from the books I’ve read.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be
published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
My agent called with the news late one afternoon. I’d been glued to my phone for days awaiting word and had finally decided I needed to take some space from it to preserve my sanity. He left a message while I was vacuuming, of all things. I called him back as soon as I saw he called. Receiving the news was a moment of incredible joy, but my family wasn’t home to celebrate with me, and I wanted to tell them first before I started calling everyone else, so I sat on the couch for a minute just processing the news, and then—and this is so lame of me!—I finished vacuuming until they got home.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
My sweet spot is literary fiction with a great plot. Louise Erdrich checks this box for me, as do Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett. I’m also a big fan of past/present narratives, of which some of my favorites are The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith and Possession by A.S. Byatt.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
In film, I’m a sucker for a period drama. I also love holiday movies. One film I’ve been watching every year for the past several Christmases is The Man Who Invented Christmas, about Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol. I’m such a nerd.
15--What is your favorite season?
Fall.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
A nice dinner out with my husband and another nice dinner out with my girlfriends. I also try to do something new. Two years ago, I rented a boat for a day. Last year, I had an aura photo taken.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I recently watched and loved the series Bad Sisters.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Mediterranean. I could eat lentil soup and pita every day.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I’m a big phone talker. One of my closest friends lives in Chicago, and we talk on the phone for hours a week about everything and nothing.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I’m underway on a dual-timeline novel set in rural Indiana in 2022 and 1881.
A Novel
A beautifully written, evocative literary page-turner about a brilliant nineteenth-century female pianist from Poland lost to history and another woman’s quest to ensure she is not forgotten—with a shocking twist of a finale.
Clara Bishop hasn’t touched a piano since a concert hall fire nearly took her life a decade ago, ending her career as a rising star in the world of classical music. Significantly scarred and unable to play, she has turned away from everything and everyone associated with music, especially her ruthless mentor Madame, whom Clara blames for her injuries.
Her life is upended when Madame dies, leaving Clara an unexpected inheritance: an ornate nineteenth-century metronome with a cryptic message hidden inside. Convinced this is not a gift but a puzzle Madame wants her to solve, Clara comes to suspect that the unusual bequest is the long-lost metronome of the composer Aleksander Starza—a priceless object missing since 1885, when Starza was murdered by the brilliant female pianist Constantia Pleyel.
As Clara works to uncover the metronome's haunted past and protect it—and herself—from those who wish to obtain it, she discovers that nothing about Starza and his murder are what they seem. History has remembered Constantia Pleyel as an unstable artist who killed Starza in a fit of madness. The truth could rewrite the history of music—and give Clara the second chance she has been longing for.
This moving tale is perfect for fans of Brendan Slocumb's The Violin Conspiracy.
Women's Fiction [Union Square & Co., On Sale: June 10, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book , ISBN: 9781454956822 / eISBN: 9781454956839]
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Sarah Landenwich is a writer and writing educator. Also a classically trained pianist, her debut novel The Fire Concerto was inspired by her love of music of the Romantic period. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband and daughter.
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