The Gentle Care for Broken Things – A Novel by Steve Gadd

An imaginative novel blending real events and historical figures with fiction as it follows the story of a unique violin, the people it touches, and the strange and magical history of Tasmanian folk music as played from Cape Barren Island to the Huon Valley.

In the year 1700 in Milan, a violin is rejected by master luthier Carlo Giuseppe Testore and begins its journey through time and place, absorbing the music of centuries along the way.  Three hundred years later, Haley is new to Tasmania and finding her feet as a music teacher and as a violinist in the local folk music scene. She asks Aaron, a Hobart craftsman, to restore the battered Testore violin in a desperate bid to help Jesse, a young girl devastated by grief.

Original, heartfelt, and immersed in place and history, The Gentle Care for Broken Things is a testament to the deep importance of musical expression and the redeeming power of simple kindness and connection.