GMA BUZZ PICK • How do we find belonging when love is unrequited? A gorgeously written debut
(Celeste Ng best-selling author of Little Fires Everywhere) filled with jazz and soul about
the perennial temptations of dangerous love told by the women who love Circus Palmer—trumpet
player and old-school ladies’ man—as they ultimately discover the power of their own voices.
Elegant unexpected and…unforgettable.” —New York Times Book Review A modern masterpiece.”
—Jason Reynolds best-selling author of Look Both Ways It’s 2013 and Circus Palmer a
forty-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man lives for his music and
refuses to be tied down. Before a gig in Miami he learns that the woman who is secretly
closest to his heart the free-spirited drummer Maggie is pregnant by him. Instead of facing
the necessary conversation Circus flees setting off a chain of interlocking revelations from
the various women in his life. Most notable among them is his teenage daughter Koko who
idolizes him and is awakening to her own sexuality even as her mentally fragile mother
struggles to overcome her long-failed marriage and rejection by Circus. Delivering a lush
orchestration of diverse female voices Warrell spins a provocative soulful and gripping
story of passion and risk fathers and daughters wives and single women and finally hope
and reconciliation.
