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    Counterpoint: Dylan's Story
    Unavailable
    Counterpoint: Dylan's Story
    Unavailable
    Counterpoint: Dylan's Story
    Ebook412 pages

    Counterpoint: Dylan's Story

    By Ruth Sims

    5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    At eighteen Dylan Rutledge has one obsession: music. He believes his destiny is to be the greatest composer of the rapidly approaching twentieth century. Only Laurence Northcliff, a young history master at The Venerable Bede School for Young Gentlemen, believes in Dylan’s talent and encourages his dream, not realizing Dylan is in love with him.

    But Dylan’s passion and belief in his future come at a high price. They will alienate him from his family and lead him on a rocky path fraught with disappointment, rejection, and devastating loss that kills his dream. A forbidden love could bring the dream back to life and rescue Dylan from despair and bitterness, but does he have the courage to reach out and take it? Will he deny the music that rules his soul?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamspinner Press
    Release dateJul 12, 2010
    ISBN9781615815340
    Unavailable
    Counterpoint: Dylan's Story

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    Reviews for Counterpoint

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    • 4/5
      Counterpoint Dylan’s Story is a gorgeously written, deeply emotional historical romance that centers on some irresistibly classic themes. First, there is the theme of the misunderstood artist, way ahead of his time, who must follow his own creative genius regardless of conventional society’s pressure to conform. Then there is the poignancy of first love, unrequited love, and forbidden love all bound up in the first major relationship in the novel. Finally, the novel weaves in a storyline involving outsiders, redemption, and the chance to love again. Throughout, the novel grounds the readers in three-dimensional sensual detail that makes both the world of music and the world of Victorian England come alive for the readers. The characters are complex and flawed and their struggles are heart-rending and absorbing.

      The story opens in Victorian England with Dylan attending the prestigious Venerable Bede School for Young Gentlemen. Dylan is a headstrong music genius from a well-to-do family. His father wants him to enter a respectable profession such as law or business, but Dylan is a volatile mixture of arrogance and innocence and cannot imagine doing anything other than his deeply personal vocation to compose music. In a further twist of fate, the music that Dylan is driven to compose is so ahead of its time that his own peers and mainstream society react with scorn, puzzlement, and maybe even fear disguised beneath an indifference designed to break him. His situation, as he struggles for opportunities to continue his work, gripped me in the same suspenseful way as the early part of Howard Roark’s story in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Meanwhile, Dylan’s character is profoundly shaped by the two great loves in his life, someone who believed in him when he was an untried youth, and someone to whom he lends his own hard-won perspective and experience later on in life.

      Val for AReCafe
    • 5/5
      I didn't think this author could top herself after "The Phoenix". Well she has. Ms. Sims has created another masterful, Epic love story. She writes beautifully telling the tale of Dylan and his life and two loves, Laurence and Geoffrey. There is enough greatness here to fill two novels. It s a life filled with love, laughter, tragedy and triumph. I can count this as one of my favorite novels, one which I will visit again. I finished this through tears, truly wanting more. I just love the prose and the writing style of this author. However, she does take her time in writing new novels. But they are certainly well worth the wait. I highly recommend this book and this author.
    • 5/5
      Following Dylan's story is a journey that will require patience at first, but as Dylan grows and finds love you begin to connect to him more intimately. You will follow him through failure, loss and grief, certain that your heart will break while sobbing and blinking the tears from your eyes so you can keep reading.You will also cheer for Dylan as he begins to let himself live again and finds love once more when he least expected it. But love is never easy, and there are outside forces that will try to take away everything Dylan cares about. Dylan refuses to give up and we follow him and his lover to their ultimate triumph. Just reading the last paragraph of this story brought the tears again.When you are able to step back after finishing this powerful story, you realize you've put yourself in the hands of a master. And her name is Ruth Sims.
    • 5/5
      Dylan Rutledge is a headstrong teenager in an all-boys English boarding school. He is driven by a desire to compose music, and this passion is so powerful that it leads him to take bold risks. He steals the cathedral key from the headmaster’s office for a single opportunity to play the church organ. He simply must hear his music played as he intended it to sound when he wrote it. Dylan is obstinate and daring, and he cannot help but challenge the conservative establishment. Sadly, this sort of behavior leads to his expulsion from the school.One of the school’s instructors, Laurence Northcliff, is charmed by young Dylan. He sees a talent in the aspiring artist that none of his other teachers seem willing to acknowledge. He convinces the headmaster to reinstate Dylan at the school and agrees to be his tutor. Unbeknownst to Laurence, Dylan begins to fall in love with his tutor. When Dylan advances on Laurence with an unexpected kiss, Laurence panics and flees the school.It isn’t until after Dylan’s graduation that he reconnects with his former teacher in Paris. Dylan, now an adult, is embarrassed by his earlier behavior, yet he once again finds himself smitten by Laurence. The two begin seeing one another socially, and eventually a romance blossoms. When Dylan elects to remain in Paris in order to pursue his study of music, his family disowns him. His father learns of his relationship with Laurence and is disgraced. Although the loss of his family is devastating to Dylan, his love for Laurence trumps all else. They fall even deeper in love and build a life together where Laurence realizes enormous success as an author of fiction, and Dylan finally begins to make strides with his musical compositions.Suddenly tragedy strikes, and it appears that Dylan will lose everything. All of the happiness he has thus far realized in his life is instantly swept away, and he must begin anew. How will he ever find the strength to go on after losing everything? Will his passion for music sustain him in his darkest hours? Will he ever love again?Ruth Sims has done it again. She’s written a masterpiece! She has woven an epic love story into a painstakingly accurate historical depiction of nineteenth century English life. This accuracy is evidenced by the minutiae of daily life which is presented in a beautiful, seamless manner, painting a vivid portrait of a truly remarkable era. The story’s central character, Dylan Rutledge, is a marvelously flawed and utterly human protagonist—passionate, arrogant, impudent, and undeniably lovable. Introduced as a rebellious teenager whose passion for music is so powerful that it’s nearly all-consuming, Dylan ultimately matures and evolves into a man who loves with an equally powerful fervency. Like Job of the Bible, Dylan helplessly watches his entire world crumble before him, and he somehow manages to endure the unimaginable heartbreak. He somehow finds the will to go on and eventually love again. Ultimately it is he who must choose to redirect this love and place his faith in another. His eternal love for Laurence remains within him, and it brings him full circle to a place where he assumes the role in another’s life which Laurence once so perfectly demonstrated in Dylan’s life.Ruth Sims is a marvelous storyteller. Her prose is written beautifully, and her character development is executed superbly. The villains are detestable, and the heroes are impossible not to love. The intimate scenes are romantic and tasteful, and the feel of the novel is of such high literary quality that the same-gender romance is inconsequential. It is purely a love story, and that is all that matters.I felt that Ruth Sims had peaked when she released The Phoenix, and I feared that any subsequent work by her would pale in comparison. I’m thrilled to admit I was wrong. Counterpoint is a must read, and it is sure to remain one of my all-time favorite historical romances.
    • 5/5
      I had the honor of being a beta reader for this novel, and ever since then I have been eagerly anticipating its publication so I could read it again. Though I truly enjoyed Sims' previous novel, "The Phoenix," I have to say that Counterpoint is even better. This is brilliant historical fiction with two love stories at the heart of it.Dylan Rutledge has a gift for music, and nothing but disdain for traditional schooling that keeps him from it. At the Bede School, only Master Laurence Northcliff can see Dylan's potential. What he cannot see is that Dylan loves him. Dylan will lose everything in pursuit of his dream: his family, security, even true love. As he struggles to make his place in the world, he crosses paths with another musical genius who could be the salvation of both his heart, and his music. Geoffrey is a gifted violinist, apprenticed to a master musician. His life is torn apart when his master dies; and Dylan must find a way to save Geoffrey, and himself.The historical setting is very well done, with lots of details to put a reader in the time, but it is the characters that make this book come alive. Dylan's passion for his music is so intense, a reader cannot help but be pulled in. I wanted Dylan to find success. But, this is not a simple romance with some angst and an HEA. Readers follow Dylan as his life unravels - through his first experiments with sex, his confrontations with his father, his consuming need to compose, his first true love, the pain of loss and finally redemption. Though Dylan is the focus, many secondary characters are also fully developed. Dylan eventually finds a patron, and she is pivotal in weaving some of the threads back together. And then there is Geoffrey, who is Rom (Romany, Gypsy). It is easy to see how these two could connect. Both feel like outsides; Geoffrey because of his heritage, Dylan because he refuses the traditional path of a young gentleman. But, they are also sustained by their music. Theirs is a beautiful romance, fiery at one moment, tender the next. They are so very real.Overall, this is a fantastic read that I cannot recommend enough. I also have to say, the cover art is gorgeous!