The Encore by Juliet Izon Summary: A Story of Music, Secrets & Family
TL;DR: The Short Version
On her sixteenth birthday, Lottie Thomas receives an envelope that changes the shape of her life.
Inside are her emancipation papers and her original birth certificate, which names a woman she has never met as her mother: Anna Buckley, a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter.
The Encore by Juliet Izon moves between two timelines.
One follows Lottie in 2024 as she searches for the truth about her origins. The other travels back to 2003, tracing how Anna and composer Will Pendleton met at a Boston conservatory and how a single decision in Ireland separated all three of them for sixteen years.
The novel is set in concert halls, tour buses, recording studios, and coastal Irish pubs. Music functions as both a career and a language the characters use when words fail them.
- Premise: A sixteen-year-old girl discovers her birth mother is a famous musician and her birth father never knew she existed.
- Structure: A dual timeline alternating between 2003–2008 and 2024, ending with an epilogue in 2025.
- Central figures: Lottie Thomas, her birth mother Anna Buckley, her birth father Will Pendleton, and her guardian uncle Aidan Thomas.
- Key themes: inherited talent, the cost of ambition, secrecy, addiction and recovery, and music as a form of communication.
- Scope: 39 sections — a prologue, 37 chapters, and an epilogue — spanning Boston, New York, Ireland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Nashville, and the Hudson Valley.
Characters In This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Charlotte “Lottie” Thomas | Sixteen-year-old protagonist who discovers her birth mother’s identity and searches for her biological parents. |
| Anna Buckley | Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and pianist who gave birth to Lottie in Ireland at age twenty-two. |
| Dr. Will Pendleton | Composer, conductor, and Brookfield Conservatory professor who was not told about his daughter for sixteen years. |
| Aidan Thomas | Fashion designer, Lottie’s legal guardian and uncle, and Anna’s high school best friend. |
| Maya Thomas | Aidan’s late older sister who adopted Lottie at birth and raised her until her death in a car accident. |
| Sasha | Lottie’s best friend in New York. |
| Tyler | Lottie’s high school friend who helps locate Anna Buckley’s studio. |
| Bee (Beatriz) | Aidan’s housekeeper and Lottie’s former nanny. |
| Gregory | Aidan’s boyfriend, an interior designer. |
| Betsy Pendleton | Will’s mother, who welcomes Anna and Lottie into the family. |
| Charles Pendleton | Will’s father. |
| Maeve | Anna’s landlady in Doolin, Ireland, who cared for her during pregnancy and childbirth. |
| Rory O’Shea | Lead singer of the Irish rock band the Vagabonds and Anna’s former collaborator and partner. |
| Quinn | Anna’s tour assistant. |
| Kendall | Anna’s publicist. |
| Nate Shean | Head of the music program at Pembroke Upper School and director of Lottie’s school orchestra. |
| Jennie Buckley | Anna’s estranged mother from Shelby County, Tennessee. |
| Dr. Colman | Lottie’s therapist in New York City. |
| Clara | Anna and Will’s second daughter, born in the epilogue. |
The Encore Summary
Spoilers ahead. This section covers the plot of The Encore from beginning to end, including the epilogue.
The novel opens with a prologue set just before a concert. Anna Buckley waits in the wings, adjusts her in-ears, and walks out to a wall of sound. She feels at home on stage, and the chapter closes on her repeating the same routine the following night.
In May 2024, Lottie Thomas wakes alone on her sixteenth birthday in an Upper East Side townhouse. Her guardian Aidan Thomas has already left for work, leaving balloons, babka, and champagne behind.
That evening Aidan and his boyfriend Gregory host a sushi dinner and give Lottie a custom red dress. Aidan then hands her signed emancipation papers and a sealed envelope holding her original birth records.
Lottie opens the envelope with her best friend Sasha. Alongside the birth certificate she finds four pages of handwritten music titled “For Charlotte. A Lullaby.”
She recognizes the melody as a song her late adoptive mother Maya used to play for her. The certificate states that Lottie was born in Ireland to an American named Anna Buckley.
The narrative then moves to September 2003. Eighteen-year-old Anna meets Will Pendleton when he walks into her practice room at Brookfield Conservatory in Boston and proves the Steinway is slightly out of pitch.
Anna is a vocal arts and piano double major; Will is a composition student with perfect pitch. They become best friends, and over Thanksgiving Anna visits Will’s family home in Brookline.
By April 2007, Will has been accepted to Juilliard and Anna has accepted a year-long songwriting residency in Doolin, Ireland. On her last night in Boston they sleep together, then say goodbye at Logan Airport.
In Ireland that fall, Anna discovers she is pregnant. She calls Will, then travels with Maeve to a clinic in Manchester, where an ultrasound plays the baby’s heartbeat.
Anna decides she cannot go through with an abortion. She calls Will back and lies, telling him the procedure is finished, then stops answering his calls and emails.
Meanwhile, in 2024, Lottie researches Anna Buckley online and finds a CD dedication naming Charlotte as the inspiration for her songs. She takes the subway to Soho, where a record store clerk tells her Anna keeps a private studio nearby.
Lottie talks her way past a lobby security guard and finds a locked twelfth-floor office with Anna’s nameplate. She returns after school for several days, working in an empty office next door.
On the fourth day she hears Anna playing piano through the wall. Her phone rings loudly, and she runs down the stairs.
Back in 2008, Anna gives birth to a baby girl in Doolin with Maeve beside her and Dr. Callahan delivering. Maya Thomas arrives at the hospital under a closed adoption arranged through her brother Aidan.
Maya names the baby Charlotte. Anna hands over the handwritten lullaby and a no-contact agreement, then returns home to recover.
Soon after, Anna meets Rory O’Shea in town and joins the Vagabonds on tour as their opening act. Her career accelerates while her personal life narrows into secrecy and, eventually, substance use.
In 2024, Lottie goes back to the twelfth floor to retrieve notebooks she left behind. Anna catches her in the hallway and invites her inside.
Lottie sits at the piano and plays the lullaby. Anna notices a birthmark on Lottie’s forearm and realizes who she is.
Lottie panics and leaves with Anna’s phone number. At home she watches an interview in which Anna mentions attending Oak Grove high school, then checks Aidan’s old yearbooks and finds a photo of Aidan and Anna together.
Anna calls Aidan, furious that Lottie found her. Aidan defends his decision to give Lottie her records and tells Anna she has no right to control the situation now.
He urges her to tell Will the truth. When Aidan comes home, Lottie confronts him, and in the argument he lets slip that her biological father is alive and was never told about her.
Lottie contacts Anna and goes to her Soho loft. Anna admits that Lottie’s father is Will Pendleton, a composer she slept with before leaving for Ireland.
Anna travels to Boston and meets Will at a bar called Five Horses. She tells him she did not go through with the abortion and that they have a sixteen-year-old daughter named Charlotte.
Will is stunned and furious. After looking at a photo of Lottie, he agrees to meet her, and the two drive to New York together.
Will first breaks the news to his parents Betsy and Charles in Brookline. Betsy is overwhelmed, then offers Anna unconditional grace and insists that Will forgive her.
Will meets Lottie at the townhouse and is struck by her resemblance to Anna. They attend an immersive Steve Reich performance at The Shed and walk the High Line.
Lottie asks them not to attend her school recital, but Anna’s assistant Quinn finds the details anyway. Anna and Will sit at the back of the auditorium and watch Lottie perform the piano part in Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” both moved to tears.
Afterward Anna impulsively invites Lottie and Will to join her summer tour. Lottie finishes her exams, attends a Studio 54-themed party, and texts Anna that she wants to come.
Anna, Will, and Lottie agree to keep their biological relationship secret on the road, framing Lottie as an intern and Will as an arranger. Publicist Kendall objects, but Anna proceeds.
On the bus, Lottie meets bandmates James, Violet, and Duncan. In Philadelphia she watches her first full production and notices an unspoken romantic tension between Anna and Will.
Traveling through Oklahoma, Anna and Will work on arrangements together in her bus bedroom. In Albuquerque a disagreement over arrangements escalates into a fight in which Will vents sixteen years of anger.
Anna defends her choice, saying she was terrified of repeating her own family history. That night she takes the stage in an aggressive mood and smashes her guitar, then spends an hour greeting emotional fans at the barricade.
Later, Will falls out of his bunk on the moving bus and injures his neck. Anna invites him into her room, and the two sleep together.
The next morning they emerge flustered, and Will cancels his flight. On Father’s Day in Austin, Lottie gives Will a vintage Bernstein record, and the three share lunch like a family.
In Los Angeles, the group spends a wild night at a private karaoke lounge. Lottie takes the mic and sings Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own,” revealing a powerful voice that stuns the room.
During the party, Anna receives a call from her mother in Tennessee: her abusive father has died.
A second-person flashback details Anna’s childhood in rural Shelby County. Her father punishes her at three, kicks her in the ribs at twelve, and mocks her ambitions at eighteen as she leaves for Brookfield.
After the news, Anna spirals in Los Angeles. She stops eating and sleeping, drills the band relentlessly, and grows distant from Lottie.
At a label after-party, an actor named Cooper makes an aggressive pass at Lottie. Will intervenes and punches him, then confronts Anna about neglecting her daughter.
Anna snaps that her father just died. Will, appalled by her state, decides to take Lottie home.
At 4 a.m. Will waits in Anna’s hotel room, having found and thrown away her cocaine. He tells her he and Lottie are flying home and reveals that he left an empty center-orchestra seat for her at every concert he ever conducted.
Flashbacks trace Anna’s drug history from her first lines with Rory O’Shea in Barcelona in 2009 to a near-fatal overdose at the Beatrice Inn.
On the sidewalk outside the club, Will insists Lottie return to New York. Aidan agrees on the phone and reveals that Anna previously struggled with severe substance abuse after Lottie was born.
Lottie recalls hearing Aidan call Anna eight years earlier when Maya died, and Anna refused to come. The next morning she confronts Anna, who admits she ran away out of fear and self-loathing. Lottie walks out.
Anna continues performing recklessly at The Greek, breaking instruments on stage. On a night off she visits the Frolic Room and falls into a bender with Rory O’Shea.
The next morning Kendall finds them together hours before a Vogue shoot. Anna calls Maeve in Ireland, who tells her to stop running, and Anna kicks Rory out.
Lottie returns to New York, where Aidan cares for her. Will invites her to Boston, tours her around Brookfield, and introduces her to his ensemble as his daughter.
In the main concert hall, Will encourages Lottie to play a Steinway on stage while he listens from the balcony. Later that evening Quinn calls: Anna has overdosed in Seattle and is in the ICU.
Anna wakes after two days on a ventilator. Will is at her bedside and tells her the rest of the tour is canceled due to contract violations and vocal cord trauma.
Will arranges a four-week intensive outpatient program near his home in Rhinebeck, New York. During that month Anna confronts her childhood trauma, spends sober weeks with Will, and he tells her he still loves her.
Lottie attends therapy with Dr. Colman and admits she misses Anna. Anna then appears at Aidan’s townhouse to make amends.
In the garden patio, Anna apologizes and describes playing music while pregnant. Lottie forgives her, and Aidan invites Anna to stay for dinner.
The three spend a peaceful week at Will’s Rhinebeck barn studio preparing for Anna’s acoustic performance in Nashville. There, before her induction into the Tennessee Songwriters Hall of Fame, Anna’s estranged mother Jennie approaches her in a hotel lobby.
Anna confronts Jennie about failing to protect her, but allows her a brief moment to meet Lottie. At rehearsal, Anna and Will kiss on the Ryman balcony.
On the morning of the Ryman show, Kendall warns that TMZ has leaked Anna’s Seattle hospital records. Backstage, Anna changes out of her formal dress into jeans and asks everyone but Will and Lottie to leave.
On stage she wavers during “Lilac Wine.” Lottie and Will join her at the piano bench, and Anna publicly introduces Will as her partner and Lottie as their daughter.
In the epilogue, set a year later in fall 2025, Anna and Will live together in New York with their newborn daughter Clara. The family gathers at Lincoln Center for the New York Philharmonic premiere of Will’s symphony.
Will presents Anna with fifth-row center tickets, takes the podium, and conducts the work inspired by the shared heartbeats of Anna and Lottie. Anna and Lottie watch with tears of joy.
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Layers of Meaning in The Encore
| Theme | How the Book Presents It |
|---|---|
| Nature, Nurture, and Inherited Talent | Lottie shares perfect pitch, piano ability, vocal power, and physical mannerisms with Anna and Will, while Maya and Aidan provide the upbringing that shapes her daily life. |
| The Price of Art and Ambition | Anna believes she had to choose between motherhood and her career, and the touring schedule, label demands, and press obligations take a measurable toll on her. |
| Secrets, Truth, and Reconciliation | Aidan carries Anna’s secret for years, Anna withholds the pregnancy from Will for sixteen years, and the story turns on what happens once each truth surfaces. |
| Trauma, Addiction, and Recovery | Anna’s abusive childhood in Tennessee, her drug use with Rory O’Shea, her overdose in Seattle, and her four-week outpatient program form a continuous thread. |
| Music as Emotional Language | The handwritten lullaby, unmailed concert tickets, duets, and Will’s symphony carry love and grief between characters who struggle to say it directly. |
Quotes from The Encore
“Whatever it says, doesn’t change who you are.”
“I love you, okay? You do whatever you want with that. But I needed you to know before you got on that plane.”
“You can communicate without ever actually speaking. Will Pendleton composed something never knowing you’d hear it, but look what effect it’s had.”
“She was my baby, too, Annie! You had no right… You had no fucking right to leave me in the dark like that.”
“You can’t even see what you’re missing anymore. I wanted to get to know you, ’cause I thought maybe that would help me figure out… me.”
“I couldn’t see how big of a hole I’d ripped in myself when I let both of you go. So many of the mistakes I’ve made since then were because I was just trying to fill it.”
“Everything that happened—our heartbeats— are all over this piece. I couldn’t have written it without them.”
Books Like The Encore
- Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid — Shares the backstage music-industry setting, artistic collaboration, addiction, and intense personal drama.
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin — Follows a decades-long creative partnership built on shared artistic work and mutual devotion.
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid — Centers on hidden celebrity secrets, maternal sacrifice, and a dual-timeline structure.
- Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid — Deals with famous parentage, inherited artistic talent, and the split between public and private identity.
- The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton — Explores music history, artistic ambition, secret personal histories, and reconciliation across generations.
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong — A mother-and-child narrative told across time, with family trauma and inherited memory at its center.
Book Details at a Glance
- Genre & Subgenre: Contemporary Fiction / Music Fiction, Coming-of-Age, Family Drama, Dual-Timeline Drama
- Core Narrative Tropes: Hidden identity, secret child, long-lost parent, second-chance romance, found family, tour life, dual timelines
- Tone & Atmosphere: Bittersweet, reflective, musically evocative, propulsive
- Primary Conflict: The fallout of Anna’s decision to hide her pregnancy and surrender Lottie, set against Lottie’s search for identity, Will’s grief over lost fatherhood, and Anna’s struggle with trauma and addiction
- Pacing Style: Fast-paced dual timeline alternating between present-day discovery and past milestones
- Book Structure: 39 sections — a prologue, 37 numbered chapters with character POV headings, locations, and dates, and an epilogue
- ISBN-10: 1454961228
- ISBN-13: 978-1454961222
- Pages: 368
- Publisher: Union Square & Co.
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Who Will Enjoy This Book?
- Readers of contemporary fiction built around family secrets and long-delayed reunions.
- Fans of music-industry stories set on tour buses, backstages, and in recording studios.
- Readers who prefer dual-timeline narratives that alternate between a parent’s past and a child’s present.
- Those drawn to coming-of-age stories about identity, adoption, and inherited talent.
