Susanne Dunlap
EMILIE’S VOICE
(Touchstone Books of Simon & Schuster)
Set against the backdrop of Paris and the court of Versailles, émilie’s Voice introduces a young heroine of modest upbringing who possesses a special gift: the voice of an angel. When distinguished composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier hears émilie’s voice, he offers to instruct her in the art of singing with the ultimate goal of presenting her at the court of Louis XIV. Her head filled with dreams of elegant gowns, opulent jewels, and the thrill of someday performing in the great houses of Paris, she begins her training — until a scheming noblewoman looking to unseat the king’s official mistress interferes by preemptively bringing émilie to Versailles.
There, amid royal pomp and splendor, she is swept up in dangerous palatial intrigues, becoming a pawn in aristocratic power games. But it is the passionate battle for control over her life and career waged between Charpentier and Louis XIV’s official court composer, Jean-Baptiste Lully, that has far-reaching consequences for a girl on the verge of becoming a woman and a singer on the verge of becoming extraordinary.
LISZT’S KISS
(Touchstone Books of Simon & Schuster)
The romantic story of a young female pianist in cholera-ravaged Paris of 1832, whose own tragedy leaves her susceptible to the passions and scandals of the composer Franz Liszt
At the height of the Romantic era in Paris, there was no bigger celebrity than the composer and pianist Franz Liszt. A fiery and gorgeous Hungarian, he made women swoon at soirees and left a trail of broken hearts behind him. Anne, a countess and talented young pianist whose mother has just died of cholera, hears Franz Liszt in concert and is swept up in his allure. The enigmatic Marie d’Agoult, a friend of Anne’s late mother, takes her under her wing and introduces her to the artistic world — despite the objections of Anne’s sullen and sorrowful father.
Anne soon finds herself in the midst of dangerous intrigues, discovering a family secret so shocking that her father will go to any lengths to protect it.
With the ominous presence of Paris’s most deadly epidemic looming over every turbulent event, Liszt’s Kiss is a rich evocation of a remarkable period as seen through the eyes of a sensitive young artist.
