The Songwriter
John Murray; Publication Date: 4 March 2010;
IBSN: 978-0719523823
New York, 1916. Monroe Simonov, a song-plugger from Brooklyn, is in love with a Ziegfeld Follies dancer who has left him for California. Inez Kennedy, a fashion model in a department store, has just one season remaining to find a wealthy husband before she must return to the Midwest. Ana Denisova, a glamorous political exile, gives lectures and writes letters while she waits for the Russian people to overthrow their Tsar. Then America joins the war, jazz sweeps the city's dance floors, the old order is swept away by newly minted millionaires and the entire nation is gripped by the Red Scare. Although the world is changing faster than they could ever have imagined, Monroe, Inez and Ana discover that they are still subject to the tyranny of the heart. In this richly atmospheric and deftly plotted novel, the paths of these three central figures cross and re-cross, leaving a trail of passion, infidelity and betrayal, and hurtle towards an explosive climax.
The Glimmer Palace (US)
Riverhead Books; Publication Date: 24 July 2008;
ISBN: 978-1-59448-985-3; Price: $24.95/$27.50 CAN
The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite (UK)
John Murray; Publication Date: 7 August 2008;
ISBN-10: 0345025652 ISBN-13: 978-0345025654
Price: £16.99 (Hardcover)
The debaucherous celebration of the cabaret-era. The magical ascent of cinema. The deprivation of World War I and the build-up to World War II. Set against the rise and fall of Berlin and the innovations in art that accompanied it all, The Glimmer Palace brilliantly weaves together the story of one orphan girl’s remarkable journey from poverty to film stardom, with an illuminating account of an astonishing history.
As the clock chimed the turn of the twentieth century, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite took her first breath. The illegitimate, soon orphaned daughter of a cabaret performer, she lands at a Catholic orphanage where she finds refuge and the first in a string of friendships that will change the direction of her life. When fellow orphan Hanne takes Lilly beyond their stone confines, introducing her to the seedy glamour of Berlin’s notorious nightlife, it begins for Lillly a trajectory of reinvention. From urchin to maid, teenage war bride, tingle-tangle bargirl, model, and script typist, Lilly is eventually transformed into one of Germany’s leading film stars and a partner in a remarkable love story that will span decades and continents—and be inextricable from the history unfolding around it.
Gripping, seductive, and mastefully written, The Glimmer Palace is a page-turning story of glitter and splendor, drama and love, friendship and identity. The story of an extraordinary heroine living in an extraordinary time, it is vivid and surprising in its telling, intelligent and ambitious in its scope, sad and beautiful and unforgettable.
"Will captivate readers as it recreates Germany's cinematic revolution and the country's subsequent tragic course through history." Publishers Weekly
For more information about the novel, download
A Conversation with Beatrice Colin
She describes what inspired her to write the book and discusses her characters' interaction with the real-life events of the period.
Buy the book from:
- Penguin Group - www.us.penguingroup.com
- Amazon (US) - www.amazon.com
- Amazon (UK) - www.amazon.co.uk
- Barnes & Noble - www.barnesandnoble.com
- Book Sense - www.booksense.com
Disappearing Act
Toby Press; Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-40-0 Pages: 212 8¾"x5¾" US$ 19.95
Crippled when her horse fell on her, the lithe, tiny and feisty Wing, can no longer continue her heady life as a tightrope walker and circus performer. When she receives a mysterious package that contains a memoir written by Helena, the mother whom she never knew, Wing learns of her mother's bizarre and ultimately tragic story...
"Fantastical, moving and beautifully written." Sunday Herald
For more information, go to www.tobypress.com/books/colin.htm
Nude Untitled
Toby Press; Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-43-5 Pages: 272 8½"x6½" US$ 15.95
Kate, the highly strung-editor of a fashionable London magazine, is determined to wrest the secret diaries of a newly discovered Russian painter of the Revolutionary period from the woman she thinks was his mistress. Clara, however, has her own agenda...
"A delicate, poignant, portrait of youth and age." Scotsman
"It might have been written by Colette or Dorothy Parker. so cleverly and tartly does it unfold." Alan Taylor, Sunday Herald
For more information, go to www.tobypress.com/books/colin.htm