Sing Her Name

Rosalyn Story's third novel links two women, a century apart, through their gift for singing. Her earlier books explore the central role Black people have played in American music, and this novel brings that interest into fiction.

In the nineteenth century, Celia DeMille is a gifted and beautiful concert singer. She performs across the world and builds a fortune, yet prejudice keeps her from being remembered among the greatest singers in history, and she dies in poverty and obscurity. In twenty-first century New Orleans, Eden Malveaux is a waitress in her thirties with a lovely but untrained voice. She has been without a mother for most of her life and now is the only guardian of her seventeen-year-old brother. She struggles to pay the bills while keeping a promise made to a dying loved one, to protect her wayward brother and raise him as her own child.

When a hurricane drives them from New Orleans to New York City, Eden looks for a safe place, both from the flood and from the law, since her brother has run afoul of it. She hopes to steer him away from crime, prison, or worse. Months later, her estranged Great Aunt Julia asks her to return to New Orleans for a short visit and hands her a box recovered from the flood debris. Inside are a century-old scrapbook and a valuable gold pendant that once belonged to Celia DeMille. Back in New York, Eden studies the traces of Celia's remarkable life. Her curiosity becomes obsession, and then an inspiration that pulls her toward a world she never imagined.

With help from new friends and encouraged by the singer's story, Eden's life takes a sharp turn toward success, and she stands on the edge of a much larger stage. Then her brother's dangerous choices catch up with them, and she must face buried secrets from a difficult childhood. To claim the future in front of her, she has to come to terms with years of regret and set down the guilt of the past, and perhaps even let go of the brother she loves.