American Nightingale

Description

Sometimes, what you are running away from is exactly what you most desire. Widowed and penniless, Bella Gale Smith and her young daughter face a bleak future in 1865 New York City, until Zach Smith knocks on her door. She knows her late-husband’s estranged stepbrother as “the black sheep” of his family. The handsome bandleader hoped to visit his younger brother before joining his former musicians in Smith’s Cornet Band, a favorite of New York society before the war. Battle-weary from fighting on the Confederate side, Zach is certainly not looking to take on his brother’s family. But Bella and her daughter tag along, buying a ticket on a steamboat north to the opulent Catskill Mountain House, where his band is booked for the summer season. Determined to keep out of Zach’s way, Bella is hired as a hotel maid, struggling to care for her daughter despite her grueling schedule and a tyrannical boss. The hotel manager, meanwhile, pressures Zach to update the band’s image and hire a female singer in the style of the popular Swedish Nightingale. It’s only when Zach overhears Bella singing a lullaby to her daughter that he realizes her clear soprano voice and good looks could be the answer to both their problems. A sweeping saga of passions and new ambitions at the beginnings of the Gilded Age in old New York.

About Debra Scacciaferro

Debra Scacciaferro is a former newspaper reporter and arts critic, who lives in the Hudson Valley of New York, where State of Innocence is set. After leaving the newspaper business, she worked as a researcher and assistant to her husband, bestselling author Jim DeFelice, and raised her son, Robert. In between, she joined several writers groups, finished three unpublished novels, and began helping other writers polish their books and novels through her business DebraS Novel Services. She is grateful to her dear friend and colleague, Lorraine Ash, author of “Life Touches Life,” for introducing her to S.K. Mason, who was looking for a writing partner.