Description: Leaving the safety of America, Teera returns to Cambodia for the first time since her harrowing escape as a child refugee. She carries a letter from a man who mysteriously signs himself as “the Old Musician” and claims to have known her father in the Khmer Rouge prison where he disappeared twenty-five years ago.
   In Phnom Penh, Teera finds a society still in turmoil, where perpetrators and survivors of unfathomable violence live side by side, striving to mend their still beloved country. She meets a young doctor who begins to open her heart, immerses herself in long-buried memories and prepares to learn her father’s fate.
   Meanwhile, the Old Musician, who earns his modest keep playing ceremonial music at a temple, awaits Teera’s visit with great trepidation. He will have to confess the bonds he shared with her parents, the passion with which they all embraced the Khmer Rouge’s illusory promise of a democratic society, and the truth about her father’s end.

Review: Music of the Ghosts is a lyrical, heart breaking, and haunting novel about Cambodia's past. The story opens in 1979 and grabs the reader's attention right away as teen Teera and her aunt flee the Khmer Rouge soldiers who decimated their village, trying to make their way into Thailand. This heart pounding, anxious escape sets the tone for the rest of the novel. The story jumps to 2003, when Teera makes the journey back to Cambodia from Minnesota, where she and her aunt settled 25 years earlier. Teera has received a letter from an old man who claims to have known her father in a Khmer Rouge prison. Desperate to learn any information about her father’s disappearance and ultimate demise, Teera makes the journey back to Cambodia.
 The story's narrative is then divided between Teera's experiences as a native and foreigner's experience in Cambodia and those of the old man who was friends with Teera's father. Teera's point of view offers hope and beauty as we learn about her past and that of her family until that frightful night. The old man's point of view is full of pain, despair as he recounts his life in captivity faced with excruciating pain and torture by the Khmer Rouge. Though the book's pacing is slow, the story and its characters are mesmerizing and it really opened my eyes as to what happened in Cambodia during those tumultuous times.

Rating: 4 stars

Words of Caution: There are graphic depictions of torture and war violence mentioned in this book. Recommended for older teens and adults.

If you like this book try: In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner, The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova, Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien