Maureen Bronson

Toby Wells, from St. Louis, Missouri, arrives at an audition run by the Sedaine Sheet Music Company. They are looking for new talent. So she eagerly arrives, with her songs in her portfolio, and auditions, but the man in charge, Michael Sedaine, tells her he is looking for something different. After he hires another person, Caleb, a piano player who plays ragtime music, she finds she can help them out by transcribing Caleb's music to paper. Toby is then offered a job in New York--being in charge of song revisions, negotiating contracts, and interviewing people. She gladly accepts. For years, since her mother died, she has been taking care of her large family and finally wants to break away and do something for herself.

After she arrives in New York she meets up with some new friends, and through a series of events, actually gets to be one of the headliners at Michael's new vaudeville house--The Pantheon Theater. Toby was a lively heroine. She was very strong, outspoken, and independent. Michael had been unhappily married years ago (his wife died) and he had two young children, Paul and Suzanne. I liked how Toby showed Michael how he was neglecting his children with his work and tried to bring them closer together. There was also some added tension between Michael and Toby--Michael wants to marry her for practical reasons (since his first marriage ended badly), Toby is holding out for love. I also liked the secondary characters--Caleb, who Michael first hired in St. Louis, and Chantelle, Caleb's girlfriend, who was a costume designer.

I enjoyed this book. I really liked the storyline (set around 1898), with songwriters, music halls, ragtime, and vaudeville.… (mehr)