Sing Her Name, Rosalyn Story
Sing Her Name, Rosalyn Story
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Sing Her Name

Author: Rosalyn Story

Narrator: Tamika Katon-Donegal

Unabridged: 12 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 04/12/2022


Synopsis

Sing Her Name follows two musically gifted women whose lives overlap across the boundaries of time. This third novel by Rosalyn Story, whose critically acclaimed books treat the central role of Black people in American music, is her best and most rewarding yet.

Beautiful and brilliantly talented Celia DeMille is a nineteenth-century concert artist who has garnered fame, sung all over the world, and amassed a fortune. But prejudice bars her from achieving her place in history as one of the world’s greatest singers, and she dies in poverty and obscurity.

In twenty-first-century New Orleans, Eden Malveaux, a thirty-something waitress with a beautiful but untutored voice, is the sole guardian of her 17-year-old brother. Motherless for most of their lives, she has struggled for years to make ends meet as she fights to keep the promise she made to their dying father: to
protect her wayward brother and raise him as if he were her own child. After a hurricane displaces them to New York City, Eden seeks safe refuge—not only from the ensuing flood, but also to hide her brother from the law, while she works to divert him from a path of crime, prison, or worse.

Months into their New York stay, Eden’s estranged Great Aunt Julia summons her back to New Orleans for a brief visit, and the older woman gives Eden something that alters the course of her life: a box she found in the midst of flooded rubble containing a hundred-year-old scrapbook and a mysterious and valuable gold pendant necklace belonging to one of the greatest singers in history—Celia DeMille.

Eden returns to New York, but as she explores the artifacts of Celia DeMille’s extraordinary life, curiosity grows into obsession, then into an inspiration that propels Eden into a world she never dreamed. With the help of new friends, and buoyed by the diva’s story, Eden’s new life in New York takes a dramatic turn
toward unimagined success.

But just as she is poised to make her mark on the world stage, her brother’s dangerous choices catch up with them, and Eden must confront buried secrets from her complicated childhood. To face the promise of her future, Eden must first reconcile years of regrets and leave behind the guilt of the past—and perhaps
even the brother she loves.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Breeee

4.5 stars This has to be One of the best historical Fictions I’ve read. Also My first book by this author and she did not disappoint. The story follows a young opera singer named Eden from New Orleans who now lives in New York after hurricane Katrina in 2005. She’s struggling to make ends meet while......more

Goodreads review by Lulu

I didn't really care for this story. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it simply followed the life of Celia DeMille. IMO, Eden's story wasn't anything spectacular. The story seemed to drag for me and I think it was because I couldn't connect with Eden's story. I did like the prose and the way......more

Goodreads review by Liz

Overall: Historical fiction at its best woven together with a modern-day story. If you like novels with separate characters and plots that interlock over time, you should definitely pick up this book! In one strand we meet Celia DeMille, who in 1919 is watching both her career and the New Orleans Op......more

Goodreads review by Lolita

This book begins in New Orleans in 1919 and ends in New York in 2005. This is the story of Celia DeMille the greatest black opera singer of all times. Ms. DeMille is not appreciated because of the time and the color of her skin. During Hurricane Katrina a box of her most prized possessions including......more

Goodreads review by Elaine

Thank you Goodreads Giveaway for this book. It was an OK read. I enjoyed parts of the book, but I found the prose to be slow moving with a lot of unnecessary details. I did like Eden, her family and friends. They supported her and saw the genius in her even when she could not. There were too many co......more