“Another wise novel rooted in Hoem’s family history. War and love, fiddle making and poverty. A fact-based, imaginative story.”
Janneken Øverland, Klassekampen, Best of 2020

“More inspired than ever … Hoem portrays the period and its people with great tenderness and empathy … If this novel were a concert, many would have answered with standing ovations”
VG, 5/6 stars

“Hoem knows how to do this, how to bring out an entire life from the obscurity of history through writing … Most importantly, where the sources come up short, the poet takes over, with his overview and a clear mind. He adds colours, sounds, smells, voices and mindsets to a story that never claims to be true in the simplest term of the word, but which strives for this closeness to a possible life … I can hardly praise this novel about a fiddlemaker in a distant past highly enough. Edvard Hoem’s prose is concrete and factual, almost simple in a very positive sense”
NRK P2

“This autumn’s most gorgeous book! Edvard Hoem has all but surpassed himself with The Violin Maker. I won’t hesitate in hailing it as a masterpiece. Quite simply this autumn’s most gorgeous novel.”
Nettavisen

“Another finely tuned story about people in the author’s own family … With generous prose and captivating storytelling that switches between the frightened cries of war and the tender tones of the instruments that gradually grow forth from the hands of the fiddlemaker.”
Romsdals Budstikke

“The Violin Maker is a story that swings, packed with great drama, lots of love and music … a wonderful read. Hoem’s pshychological intuition and human understanding unfolds in terse dialogues and monologues where old grudges and sorrow for what is lost contribute to the complexity and credibility of the novel’s characters … There is lots to enjoy in Edvard Hoem’s new novel. Not only does it enrich our understanding of history with astonishing details, it also manages to seduce a modern reader into being infatuated with a 200 year old man.”
Dagsavisen

“A historical novel beautifully set to music. The novel about the fiddlemaker is musical in more than one sense. Hoem’s prose is beautiful, agile and to the point, as always … Hoem’s collected literary family story unfolds gradually, like the ribs of a beautiful hand fan … That he transforms this into credible, engaging fiction can contribute to our knowledge about and insight into the past, and even, in the best of cases, ourselves.”
Klassekampen