Book signings Feb. 20 and 21
By American staff
On Monday, February 20 author Rosalyn Story will make a stop in St. Louis for a champagne reception and book signing at Legacy Bookstore and Café, 5249 Delmar, from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m.
A second book signing will be held February 21 at Paradies Concessions II Arch Inc. Gift shop at the St. Louis Lambert International Airport from noon until 5 p.m.
Story will sign copies of her debut novel, More Than You Know. This debut novel from Story, a veteran nonfiction writer who is also a professional musician, is an absorbing, well-crafted crafted narrative that will keep readers gripped through its final pages.
Set in the world of jazz music, the story begins with a nine-year-old boy in small-town rural Arkansas bearing a mysterious infant through a furious thunderstorm, then embarks on the tale of a broken couple striving to reunite, while interspersed flashbacks detail their lives together and how they were driven apart.
Under a solemn oath never to reveal the baby’s origins, the boy delivers the nameless child safely to the doorstep of an unsuspecting family and retreats without a word. Many years later, the boy, L.J. Tillman, has matured into a brilliant jazz saxophone player. But when the secret that L.J. guarded so faithfully is finally revealed, his marriage of 25 years is suddenly ripped apart.
The devastated L.J. finds himself homeless and playing for change on the streets of New York City. As he wanders from the wreckage of his past, he struggles to recover his career and to figure out how he can return to his wife and home in Kansas City.
Meanwhile, L.J.’s beloved wife Olivia hopes against impossible odds for the return of the husband most others have given up for dead. Tormented by uncertainty and regret, she struggles to keep her beauty shop business afloat and to face up to her lifelong fear of fulfilling her long-denied talent as a singer.
As the story unfolds, moving expertly from character to character, present to past and back again, L.J. and Olivia slowly find their way back to each other to confront L.J.’s secret – and a few others that neither is prepared for – in their effort to recover their life together.
More Than You Know is a page-turner. Lyrical, accessible, compelling and populated by a broad, fully realized cast of supporting characters, it tells how this broken couple strives to save their marriage: shaken to the core, they discover that truth conforms to its own rules and that love can endure even the most profound injuries.
It’s a tale for readers of any gender, race or age, featuring a classic love story that underscores the power of love and family and its ability to overcome almost any odds. Essence magazine called the book “a moving, grown-up read featuring well-drawn and familiar characters. This is the perfect choice for your next book club pick.”
Rosalyn Story lives in Dallas. Her first book, And So I Sing: African American Divas of Opera and Concert (Warner), inspired the PBS documentary Aida’s Brothers and Sisters: A History of Blacks in Opera, in which she appeared as featured narrator. She has written on music and art of Essence, Emerge, American Visions Opera News, Stagebill and the NAACP magazine, The Crisis. A full-time classical musician, she plays violin with the Forth Worth Symphony. More Than You Know is her first novel.