The Encore

The Encore by Juliet Izon wasn’t initially on my radar, but when I saw it on NetGalley, I was instantly intrigued. It starts with Anna Buckley and Will Pendleton in 2003, when they’re both students at a prestigious school studying music. They’re friends, not lovers, but one hookup before they part ways leaves Anna pregnant. She’s not willing to raise a baby, and secretly gives her daughter up for adoption. Sixteen years later, Lottie Thomas is determined to finally learn who her birth parents are… and it turns out they’re both successful, even famous, musicians. The three of them end up on a tour bus together, but will this reunion create the family they never got to have, or break them up for good?

What I Liked:

• Deep dive into music. I always love books about music, especially novels like this one that really go into the music itself. The Encore shows three people who live and breathe music, two of them with perfect pitch. Anna is a famous indie rock singer with six albums to her name; Will is a composer with music in films and performed in orchestras around the world. We get to see the characters discuss music, compose it, perform it, and live the musician lifestyle. I loved every bit of it.
• Family history vs. prospect of motherhood. The central theme of this novel is what makes a family. Anna had an awful childhood that she never discusses, and when she’s pregnant, she sees no future for herself to be a mother. So she gives up baby Charlotte for adoption. But when Lottie is sixteen and tracks down her birth mother, Anna is forced to reconsider her past choices: both the adoption and never telling Will that she had the baby at all. Would Anna have been a good mother these past sixteen years? Can she be one now? What about Will being a father now?
• Running away from your problems. Another increasingly urgent theme is Anna’s coping mechanism of burying her traumas and fears. Her childhood was rough, and we don’t learn the extent of it until late in the book. But in 2024, with Will and Lottie suddenly in her life, it’s clear that Anna is not doing well. The version of her that the fans see on stage isn’t the woman behind the scenes. Substance abuse and shutting people out reach a volatile climax, leaving Anna at a crossroads.

Audiobook:

Mia Hutchinson Shaw and Carly Larson both do a marvelous job of narrating The Encore. The novel is divided between both Anna and Lottie’s points of view, with Anna’s moving from the past (2003) up until the present (2024). Each narrator captured their character’s voice so well: Lottie’s is suitably youthful and naive, yet courageous; Anna’s is more closed-off but defiant in her own way. Both really elevated the novel.

Final Thoughts

The Encore is a superb novel that is multilayered and full of feeling. I loved the themes of family, trauma, and music, and I fell in love with all the characters—not just Anna and Lottie, but also Will, Maeve, Aidan, and Kendall. This captured all the feelings and was at once a fun yet heart-rending read. I can’t wait to see more from Juliet Izon.

Special thanks to Union Square & Co., Hachette Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy The Encore here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

The Encore by Juliet Izon
Audiobook Narrator	Mia Hutchinson Shaw; Carly Larson
Audience	Adult
Genre	Contemporary Fiction; Music Fiction
Setting	New York; Ireland
Number of Pages	368
Format I Read	Audiobook & Ebook (NetGalley ARCs)
Original Publication Date	March 3, 2026
Publisher	Union Square & Co.

Official Summary

A captivating journey of love, sacrifice, and destiny playing out in the world of music.
 
In 2003, at the prestigious Brookfield Conservatory in Boston, a chance encounter sparks an inimitable friendship between driven pianist and singer Anna Buckley and composer wunderkind Will Pendleton. As they strive toward careers as professional musicians, their bond deepens both from shared skill and the inexplicable sense that they’re kindred souls. But soon after graduation, one night forever alters the trajectory of their lives, destroying their relationship in the process.      
 
Twenty years later in New York, sixteen-year-old piano virtuoso Lottie Thomas is grappling with the rigors of her elite prep school and the confounding disappearance of the woman who gave her up at birth. When Lottie suddenly discovers the startling truth of her identity, the revelation catalyzes a chain of events that not only reunites Lottie with her birth parents, but forces them together on a rock tour-bus for a careening cross-country journey. It is there, trapped in these tight confines, that the three must finally reconcile with irrevocable choices from the past.