I found the concept of the book intriguing but as listening to it I spent a lot of time wondering where the connection was between the vase and the various people. Some was resolved in the end but how this vase was seen to encourage the joy of music (aside from being from the Song Dynasty), I don’t know.
I agree with several other reviewers, I found the characters had little depth and were very idealistic. Several parts of the story were as well cliche.. yes, like the part where the mother, whom is a fantastic singer, does not know til her daughter is almost a teen, that she sings well also. I maybe could have let that go if the daughter in turn had not said she did not know her daughter could sing but figures this out as her daughter is almost a teen. It’s so unlikely. Especially in a claimed " musical" family. Also, one of the main male figures manages to walk hundreds of miles to get home after both wars he is involved in..???

The author does her own narration. This is not the only book she has narrated. I listened to other book excerpts and find her style of reading to be fairly uniform. It is not a style I like. She has the ability to do many accents and individual voices which is great but most characters speak with the same cadence. In the beginning of this book I found the reading to be too lilting and lacking in true emotion of the characters. If I had not gotten this book for free and agreed to do a review I likely would have stopped listening after 20 minutes.
Things did improve so it was no longer a challenge to listen to however I still do not warm to the style.

The audio recording sounded mostly like I was listening to an MP3 version- tinny. There was one male voice however, where the audio quality improved and her voice for this character sounded so good I questioned if they snuck in a male narrator. The switch in the story between the audio qualities was irritating to listen to.

The author has several books and I’m unsure I’d read / listen to another one. I guess I’d give it a try.

I received this free audiobook review copy at my request and voluntarily leave this unbiased review.