The Carillon Lips - THE QIN PLAYER

The Carillon Lips — Volume V: The Qin Player

By Vienna Leary

Mi Yang knows how to make himself heard. Getting people to listen is another matter.

Raised among resourceful women whose work keeps a busy household alive, Mi Yang learns to notice everything: a misplaced fastening, an altered note, the difference between being asked and being told. His mother teaches him music. The women around her teach him care, responsibility and the importance of knowing what belongs to someone else.

Beyond their gate, those lessons become harder to hold.

Carrying his qin into a world of military camps, crowded markets and uncertain roads, Mi Yang discovers that talent attracts attention—and attention can become a claim upon him. When a song born from a private experience acquires political verses in other people’s mouths, he must answer for words and intentions he does not recognise as his own.

His journey takes him through danger, imprisonment, friendship and desire, testing both his fierce precision and his belief that the truth should be enough.

Expansive, intimate and threaded with dry humour, The Qin Player follows the making of a musician and a man: the women who raised him, the people who change him, and his struggle to keep a voice of his own.

The fifth volume of The Carillon Lips, continuing from The Shape of Love. Also available as part of the complete seven-volume collection.

Digital edition: one EPUB file. No physical book will be posted.