The Forgotten Sonata

The Forgotten Sonata weaves past and present into a story of music, memory, and the quiet ways history refuses to stay buried.

In 1812, amid the uncertainty of the War of 1812, British officer William Beale serves on the Canadian frontier near Fort Detroit. As alliances shift and loyalties are tested, William records his thoughts in journals and letters meant for a woman he may never see again, while an unfinished sonata passes quietly from hand to hand, its significance unrecognised by those who carry it.

Two centuries later, Oliver Beale, a Canadian graduate student at Cambridge, begins researching his ancestor's wartime service. What starts as an academic exercise soon becomes personal. Fragmented journals, faded military records, and a forgotten piece of music draw Oliver deeper into a past that mirrors his own uncertainties about love, ambition, and belonging. As his research brings him closer to Sara, a fellow scholar with her own reasons for looking backward, the boundary between scholarship and inheritance begins to blur.

Moving between the forests and forts of Upper Canada and the libraries and courts of modern Cambridge, The Forgotten Sonata explores how private lives intersect with public history, and how art can outlast the circumstances of its creation. Rich in historical detail and emotional restraint, it is a novel about what survives when war ends, and what is passed down when stories are left unfinished.