This was a quick easy vacation read about the residents of Swann’s Knob, North Carolina. Miss Wilma Mabry, the widowed piano teacher of the title, is a gracious Southern lady who has always conducted herself properly. When her daughter and granddaughter suddenly arrive for a visit from New Mexico things get complicated quickly, and before Miss Wilma can blink both her son-in-law and another young man from New Mexico are staying with her as well. As if that weren’t enough, a police office has been murdered and suspicion has fallen on one of her visitors.

It was a decent read for traveling on the plane and waiting in airports over the holidays. I think York’s plot got away from her, however. I would have been happy with a book that just focused on the personal relationships, new love interests, and difficulties among the residents. The murder was an unnecessary complication, in my opinion; York did not succeed in writing with the kind of pace one expects in a mystery novel (even in a cozy).

( )

Miss Wilma is a small town piano teacher in North Carolina. Her daughter Sarah and granddaughter Starling arrive for an unexpected visit. Her son-in-law Harper and Jonah Branch turn up just as the body of an officer is found -- just in time for Jonah to be accused of the murder. Sarah, her mother, and her mother's friend are convinced of Jonah's innocence and must work to prove it before Jonah lands behind bars for good. I really wanted to like this book, but it just didn't grip me. I liked Miss Wilma's character well enough, but the story line just didn't hold me. There was also a thread early in the novel about a piano student auditioning that just kind of fizzled out in the midst of the book with absolutely no resolution. I was more interested in this thread about the promising piano student than about the murder investigation so it left me unsatisfied. ( )

In the spring of 1980, widowed piano teacher Wilma Mabry's ordered world is turned upside down when her daughter Sarah and granddaughter Starling show up for an unexpected visit. Sarah's husband, Harper, and her "good friend" Jonah soon follow, just in time for Jonah to be arrested for the murder of a sheriff's deputy. While Sarah is reluctant to share the details of her life with her mother, Miss Wilma is observant enough to figure things out. With the support of her would-be suitor, town bachelor Roy Swan, Miss Wilma manages to help the police capture a murderer.

I'm a big fan of Ann B. Ross's Miss Julia books and I suppose I expected this book to be very similar to the books in the Miss Julia series. Both are about genteel widows in small North Carolina mountain towns. However, The Piano Teacher lacks the gentle humor of the books in the Miss Julia series and instead has a much more worldly feel. The Piano Teacher's Swan's Knob isn't as appealing as Miss Julia's Abbotsville, but it is probably a more accurate portrayal of small town life. The two characters do have a lot in common, though. If Miss Julia had a daughter (instead of being childless), she would probably be exactly like Miss Wilma. ( )

http://dhamel.typepad.com/book_blog/2004/09/the_piano_teach.html
( )