What readers think of Ellie and the Harpmaker, plus links to write your own review.

I loved Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior. It was a lovely story and I came to really care about Ellie and Dan. Dan's outlook on life was so uplifting. The world needs more books like this! I found all the characters believable and their back story helped you understand them and their actions. So glad Ellie stood up for herself and our two main characters got the ending they deserved. I agree- this one is special!

Dan and Ellie are characters that readers will remember long after they've finished reading Ellie and the Harpmaker. In many ways Dan is a simple man. He is an excellent harpmaker, loves the Exmoor countryside and is incapable of saying anything other than the truth. Somewhere on the autism spectrum, Dan much prefers nature to people.   

Ellie is a housewife who takes long walks to fill her time since there's only so much housekeeping and meal preparation one can do for a home without children. When Ellie stumbles upon Dan's harp barn, she is enchanted by both the harps and the craftsman. She arranges to take lessons from Dan's girlfriend but decides to keep her new interest a secret from her practical and frugal husband.

The story unfolds through the alternating voices of Dan and Ellie as they discover more about their partners and each other. The plot is multi-layered and unpredictable. Some authors have commented that their novels are improved by the inclusion of animals. Prepare to meet Phineas who has a significant role in the climax. Ellie and the Harpmaker is beautifully written and a book I'll recommend to all of my reading friends.

What a wonderful, charming book. Great story of friendship and love. You just never know what curves life will throw at and how these curves will change your life...many times for the better. I enjoyed this book. Kudos to the author.

I enjoyed this book. I especially like Dan not only the way he viewed life but also how he felt about the people in his life.

This was a tender and easy read. The author, Hazel Prior does a lovely job with tension, so even though you imagine you "know" the ending, there are still enough questions and twists and turns to keep you reading. Also, because the setting and characters are from the UK (and I am from the US), there are fun interesting turns of phrase that keep the writing lively. I gave a "very good" and said an "easy" read because the characters were refreshingly sweet but not without flaws, and there were enough rough-edged characters and situations to keep it from being a total fairytale. I did at times wonder about the harpmaker character - if a real person could be quite this innocent and perceptive without being simple-minded and therefore not a good intellectual match for Ellie.

I found Ellie and the Harpmaker to be an unexpected gift, heartwarming and touching. I liked the characters...I could both visualize them and hear them (and almost hear the beautiful music the harps made). And I was deeply touched by Ellie and Dan as they alternately told their story. While this book is easy to read, it is not a simple book and I think most readers will enjoy it. It would be an excellent selection for my own book club.

People read for all sorts of reasons, but after reading the cover of this book, I had no clear-cut idea about what to expect. Ellie and the Harpmaker is an unexpected gem of a novel with imperfect characters who make your heart ache for them. I found it insightful to be an omnipotent insider, privy to the thoughts and longings of the main characters, waiting for them to hopefully come to the same realizations that I had about their lives. Dan the harp maker finds more solace in the nature around him rather than to people sounds a note that all could heed. As I finished this book, I realized that it was not at all what I expected. It was a wonderful mingling of some lovable (and some not so lovable) characters who take you on a voyage of discovery for themselves and, if you read closely, perhaps invaluable discoveries for the reader too.
I would definitely recommend this book to book clubs. In fact, I will do so to mine!

'There's a sharp tug in my guts. The plum picking day is sacred in my memory, something I want to wrap in tissue paper and fold away tenderly and take out often to gaze at before I fold it away tenderly again.' This is the vivid descriptiveness that Hazel Prior uses throughout the book making the reading experience visually imaginative. I rarely give a 5 star review, however I fell in love with these quirky characters and the quiet quaintness this read provides. The pages kept quickly turning up to the bitter end!

I'd like to thank BookBrowse for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review