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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
In Soundscape by Kenneth Thomas, Nick Stern meets Hannah Wren during a summer archaeological dig in Israel, where a brief academic trip turns into the beginning of a relationship that changes their lives. After a violent attack leaves Nick injured, they return to Wisconsin, carrying the aftermath into their daily lives, only for the relationship to be further altered by the hidden realities inside Hannah’s family home. As circumstances force them onto separate paths, Nick’s life moves across Africa through work tied to political change while Hannah rebuilds her future under the weight of long-held secrets. Years later, a chance public moment puts them back within each other’s orbit, bringing the unfinished history between them to the surface and setting in motion a reckoning with everything that first began in Israel.
Kenneth Thomas’s Soundscape is a sweeping romance, and the author does an excellent job of maintaining the sustained push and pull created by absence and memory. I definitely liked Hannah the most, and what she has endured is absolutely heartbreaking. The author builds her up with moments of agency that feel totally authentic, particularly when it comes to single motherhood and her unbending commitment to being on the right side of a case as a forensic accountant. Thomas depicts Nick's life in South Africa brilliantly, whether he is championing for the disenfranchised or creating a careful account of the Herero and Nama genocide. For all the emotion Thomas pours into the story, he shines brightest with prose that gives a textured feeling of space, from a Bakersfield consulting office under sharp, fluorescent lights to safari grounds near Victoria Falls with expanses of mist, stone, and wildlife. Readers who enjoy romance sagas that span time and continents will find much to appreciate here. Recommended.
