The fourth in Quaver’s Ordeals of Elly Robin series picks up the picaresque misadventures of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century heroine, a musical prodigy, with Elly adrift on the Arkansas river, orphaned and near death, until she’s rescued by the crew of the Jean Lafitte. Her next destination: living rough on the streets of 1913 New Orleans, where Elly, as she always does on her unexpected journeys, makes friends and music, this time falling in with the ragtag Razzy-Dazzy Spasm Band at the dawn of the jazz era. She becomes a piano player in an elegant bordello and befriends the women toiling there, getting involved in their lives. One evening a visitor, the musical maestro Bellini, opines that, though Elly is prodigiously talented, her music reveals a lack of formal learning. Though hurt, Elly realizes this is true. After saving some lives and setting others on track, she leaves New Orleans with plans to learn under Bellini.Set in the sleazy underbelly of America’s most international city, where a host of global cultures fused into gumbo, this entry in the sprightly series captures the spirit of the city and its great love for music. The parade of interesting and colorful characters includes glimpses of epochal musical figures, founding fathers of what will come to be known as jazz. Also entertaining, as always, is the protagonist herself, whose silence hides not just oodles of talent but reservoirs of grit as well. Then there is the gun-toting, cigarette-smoking “countess,” Estelle, who wants to be child free; Liddie who yearns to be a mother; Dago Annie, the angel of death; and the Karnofsky family with their ‘adopted’ child, Louis Armstrong, boasting a “mile wide smile.”
The pace is brisk and narrative taut. The portrayal of the city and the times is realistic but good humored, imbuing Elly’s adventures with feelings of Twain-like amusement, and bemusement. Readers who relish fun, adventure, history, and a driven protagonist will be eager for more.
Takeaway: A young woman’s vivid, charming adventures in 1913 New Orleans.
Comparable Titles: Ruta Sepetys’s Out of the Easy, Diane C. McPhail’s The Seamstress of New Orleans.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
