Five-Part Invention cover art

Five-Part Invention

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Five-Part Invention

By: Andrea J. Buchanan
Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley, Susan Hanfield, Jackie Meloche, Jane Oppenheimer, Jayme Mattler
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

When Lise, a pianist, suffers a nervous breakdown early in her marriage, her husband, in a warped act of protection and jealousy, has her piano taken away. With prose that is precise and emotionally affecting, Andrea J. Buchanan vividly renders how Lise's separation from her one source of expression and fulfillment cascades into her relationship with her daughter, leaving a legacy of trauma that echoes through the generations to come. Characters emerge broken and passionate, jagged, and yet hopeful and emotionally resonant, written in a way that only Buchanan, herself a conservatory-trained pianist, could achieve. Spanning five generations of women, Five-Part Invention wrestles with the question—if trauma echoes through generations, can love echo too? Is the love we transmit enough to undo the trauma of the past that we unwittingly carry with us and often re-enact in the present?

By turns frightening and exquisitely observed, Five-Part Invention establishes Buchanan as a literary force.

©2022 Andrea J. Buchanan (P)2022 Dreamscape Media, LLC Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological
All stars
Most relevant
I’m not 100% finished but the multiple time lines the multiple characters the generational trauma and the overcoming of secrets and cycles of abuse. This book is a tough (by content not flow) read but a great read. The last character gives the book a very contemporary feel. And the narrators are great.

This book is so good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.