Earlier this year in Promises of Forever, Nicky James introduced readers to Niles Edwidge the best friend/former lover of Koa Bugard, one of the protagonists in that story. Niles teaches music at Timber Creek Academy, the prestigious private school where Koa teaches English, and although they were no longer romantically involved it was clear they cared for each other deeply, and Niles was an excellent sounding board for Koa as he struggled to find his way in his relationship with his partner, Jersey. Niles is one of those characters who leapt from the page demanding his own story be told – and here it is. In Symphony of Salvation, Niles meets his forever person in the form of an internationally renowned musician who takes a temporary position at the school in order to help his troubled fourteen-year-old daughter settle there.

Niles has worked at the academy for sixteen years, but not a one has gone by without at least one parent complaining about their child being taught music by the only teacher at the school who does not have a PhD. Niles has his reasons for that and the lack of those letters after his name don’t stop him being a dedicated and exemplary educator, but he’s regularly plagued by feelings of inferiority. He loves his job and knows he’s good at it, but can’t help waiting for the day he’s told the school has found a more qualified teacher and that he should pack his bags. He thinks that day has arrived when he’s unexpectedly summoned to the principal’s office – but the news he’s given isn’t what he expects. Instead of being fired, he’s told that he’ll be temporarily sharing his teaching load with world-famous performer, conductor and composer, Maestro August Castellanos.

August has taken a break from his busy career to parent his teenage daughter, Constance, who, until recently, lived with her mother, Chloé, an opera singer. Due to circumstances not revealed until later in the book, it’s no longer possible for Constance to remain with her which means August has had to step in – but he has been an absent parent (which was the deal after Constance was conceived – Chloé wanted a baby, not a husband or partner) and is rapidly drowning, having no idea how to deal with an angry, hurting teen who has been ripped away from everything that is familiar to her. August is trying to do the right thing – giving his daughter the chance at a more normal life than the one her mother has given her so far – but he can’t seem to do anything right and they are constantly at daggers drawn. The real sticking point is that Constance is voluntarily mute following the removal of a tumor on her larynx and subsequent treatment; she can speak, but hates the sound of her voice when she uses the prosthesis she’s been fitted with, and so she opts not to talk. This drives August up the wall, and his refusal to learn ASL because he wants her to use her voice (and thus fulfil his promise that she’d speak again after the surgery) infuriates her. It’s a no-win situation and their relationship is crashing and burning at an alarming rate.

To say that Niles and August don’t hit it off to begin with is an understatement. At their first encounter, August provides an unasked for and rather harsh critique of Niles’ performance on the piano which, not surprisingly, angers Niles and cements his opinion that August is an arrogant, high-handed musical snob who thinks he’s better than everybody else. It doesn’t help that Niles is more than a little jealous of what he perceives as August’s charmed existence. Here is a man living the life Niles had dreamed of – a top-flight professional musician with the world at his feet – but was never able to achieve. His family of doctors and lawyers always looked down on his musical ambitions and refused to support them, still seeing him as nothing but a glorified babysitter. Add being gay into the mix and, well, Niles is most definitely the blackest of black sheep. It’s not until August starts to allow Niles a glimpse of the truth of the man behind the musician that Niles learns that August’s life hasn’t been a bed of roses either; his family may have fostered his talent and supported his desire for a musical career, but he was ruthlessly pushed by his father, forced to practice for hours and hours a day from the time he was six, and never allowed to make his own choices, even well into adulthood.

It’s after those brief moments of vulnerability that the relationship between the pair starts to warm up. There’s been a spark of attraction between them from the start although they’ve both done their best to ignore it, Niles because he knows he falls in love too easily and believes someone like August isn’t for him; August because he’s spent years repressing the side of him that’s attracted to men and isn’t planning to stick around. But Niles has captivated him – he’s kind and funny and charming, he’s so effortlessly himself and is an incredibly gifted teacher with the ability to relate to and empathise with others in a way that August has never been able to do. And despite his best efforts, Niles can’t help being drawn to August, a man who seems to have everything but who, in reality, is deeply lonely and unhappy. The antagonists-to-lovers element to the love story is superbly done; August and Niles’ initial dislike of one another is palpable even as it fizzes with chemistry and attraction, and their romance has the feel of a sensual slow-burn – and the way Nicky James turns August from a character who is hard to like into a man we can believe is worthy of love – worthy of Niles – is masterful. I loved watching them help each other to realise some important truths about themselves and their lives, and the way they gravitate towards each other even when they (think) they don’t want to.

Niles and August are complex, flawed and fully three-dimensional characters, and while the secondary cast is small, it’s equally well-rounded with Constance being the stand-out. Not all authors can write children and young people well, but Nicky James brings angry, insecure, frustrated, loving, vulnerable Constance to vibrant life. There are brief cameos from Koa and Jersey, too, who return the favours Niles did for them in the previous book by being sympathetic ears and sounding boards as he works his way through his complicated feelings for August.

I enjoyed the characters and loved the romance, but I really struggled with the inaccuracies and misconceptions about the life of a professional classical musician, which kept pulling me out of the story. I’ve often heard lawyers or police officers say they avoid books featuring characters in those professions because errors about the details make it hard for them to enjoy the stories; our very own Dabney has said a few times that she avoids novels featuring doctors or medical professionals for the same reason. I trained as a classical musician and worked in the business for well over a decade so I know something of how that world works, and unfortunately, the author’s depiction of it just doesn’t match my experience. I won’t make an exhaustive list, but here are just a few of the things that made no sense to me. We’re told that August was a prodigy, a virtuoso – so why didn’t he become a soloist? Becoming principal flute in a symphony orchestra takes talent, no question, but it’s not a path to international stardom or becoming a household name. A principal flautist who has occasionally done a bit of conducting is unlikely to be called “maestro” – that term is generally reserved for highly respected conductors who are and have been at the top of their profession for many years – think Bernstein, Karajan, Abbado etc. – and very occasionally composers or soloists. And August composing so many pieces of music but not wanting them to be published or played is, surely, akin to an author writing a book and not wanting anyone to read it!

I have to applaud the author for so clearly understanding that music is more than something musicians do – it’s something they ARE – but it’s a double-edged sword, because the musical background is so closely woven into the fabric of the story that it meant I couldn’t separate the romance – and the story of August learning to become a better father, and Niles realising that being a teacher is his true passion – from the things that bugged me. If that hadn’t been the case, or if there had been fewer things that pulled me out of the story I might have been putting this one on my keeper shelf, but as it is, I’m not sure it’s a book I’ll go back to.

But this is obviously a ‘me’ thing and I’m sure that the author’s many fans will love Symphony of Salvation and Niles and August’s messy, bumpy road to their HEA.