Set against the backdrop of the 1982 Falklands War, this is the story of a forbidden love affair at the world's most famous school, Eton College. Kim recalls the summer when as a schoolboy he was beguiled by his piano teacher, India. As he reminisces, he cannot help but remember the music that she taught him to love, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. But the distractions are legion - a martinet father who is determined Kim should join the army; a prefect, Charles Savage, hell-bent on making his life a misery; and a girlfriend, Estelle, who is forever sending passionate love-letters.
About the Author: William Coles was a student at Eton for five years before reading Theology at Bristol University. He has been a journalist since 1988, training on the Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard and the Cambridge Evening News, before joining The Sun in 1994. Since 2001, Bill has been freelancing in Edinburgh, where he lives with his wife and two children. He regularly writes for the Express, Sunday Express, Mail and Wall Street Journal.
Excerpt from the book:
An hour later we were taking our leave of each other when India fished into her handbag. “I’ve bought you a present,” she said, handing me a small box that was wrapped with love hearts.
I gazed at it, gave it a shake. Something rattled inside. “What could it be?”
“The key to my heart?”
“I better open it then.”
It was not quite the key to her heart. It was the key to her home, small and golden with a brown leather fob in the shape of a love-heart.
“Thank you.” I kissed her. “So you won’t have to come downstairs at midnight for me?”
“That’s right.” She kissed me back, nibbling my lower lip. “Let yourself in any time you like.”
Oh - indeed I would. But for that little golden key, how different my life might have been. For you know the story of Duke Bluebeard? He welcomes his new bride to his castle and tells her that she may go wherever she pleases - save for the one room with the locked door. But of course she goes there. She has to go there. And in it, she finds all the wracked and tortured bodies of Bluebeard’s previous wives. I too was Bluebeard’s bride. For I had been given the key to my love’s castle and the only thing stopping me from unearthing her secrets, her skeletons, was my own self-restraint.
And I had none of it.
-- END
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, CONTACT:
Darin Jewell
Managing Director
The Inspira Group
Literary Agency
E-mail: darin@
Tel. 0208 292 5163
