A Debut Novel
The Apprentice of Cremona
A man wakes after twenty lost years — and remembers a life three centuries gone.
A man wakes after twenty lost years — and remembers a life three centuries gone.
For twenty years, Charles Barbier disappeared from the world.
He spent those twenty years in a bed at Bellevue Hospital — his eyes open, his body motionless, his voice silent. No one knew who he was, where he had come from, or what was happening behind those unseeing eyes.
Until one night, he woke up.
And his first words in twenty years were in Italian, spoken as though he were saying goodbye to a dear friend.
Charles claims to remember those twenty years. He just doesn't remember spending them in New York. He remembers eighteenth-century Cremona, working as an apprentice in the workshops of the great masters who built some of the most extraordinary violins in history.
Dr. Danielle Hatch knows that's impossible.
Charles knows she won't believe him.
But then he begins telling her things he shouldn't know. Places. People. Historical details. Secrets hidden for three centuries.
And he leaves behind a question that will take Danielle from a hospital room in New York to the streets of Cremona…
Did Charles Barbier really spend twenty years in the past — or is he an extraordinarily intelligent man constructing an extraordinarily perfect lie?
The evidence points both ways.
You decide.
— Charles Barbier —
Memories framed in smoke made of feeling,
memories of things that almost never happened.
In a fraction of a second, they were gone,
yet the scenes they left behind have always remained —
with their scents, their colors, and the feelings of the heart.
For there is no present, only past and future.
I am nothing but my memories: ghosts, guests of my mind, who will live forever.
And as time passes, more eternal we become, and more memories we carry.
Their faces, your laughter, and the harmony of simply being.
That is enough for me. I need nothing more.
Never again will we forget.
And though someday I may grow tired of thinking,
in eternity, with me, my ghosts and I will live in peace.
Memorie incorniciate in un fumo fatto d'affetti,
ricordi di fatti che quasi non avvennero.
In un solo istante son passati,
ma le scene impresse ognor son rimaste.
Con odori, colori e il sentir del core,
ché non v'è presente, sol passato e futuro:
altro non son che i miei ricordi,
fantasmi, ospiti della mia memoria, che vivranno in sempiterno.
E col passar del tempo più eterni diveniamo,
e più ricordi abbiamo.
I loro volti, le tue risa, e l'armonia del semplice stare.
Di ciò m'appago, altro non bramo.
Giammai più torneremo a scordare.
E sebbene stanco di pensare un dì io possa essere,
nell'eternità, meco i miei fantasmi ed io vivremo in pace.
Part psychological mystery, part historical epic, The Apprentice of Cremona moves between a modern hospital room and the candlelit workshops of Italy's golden age of violin-making — asking how far a mind can travel, and whether memory can lie.
A story about craft, obsession, and the thin line between genius and delusion.
Leave your email and you'll be the first to read excerpts, cover reveals, and the release date for The Apprentice of Cremona.
No spam — only news about the book. Unsubscribe anytime.
Or follow along on Instagram.