The Torch Singer, Book One: An Overnight Sensation

The Torch Singer, Book One: An Overnight Sensation
Author: Robert Westbrook
Publisher: Swan's Nest Canada
Total Pages: 295
Release:
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1926499018

“Robert Westbrook’s novel strips the gilt off the Hollywood Golden Age to reveal the seamier underside. The Torch Singer begins with an ending, a scene of murder and mayhem on St. Valentine’s Night in 1956 Beverly Hills and unravels the many and various threads of the lives and careers that took them there.” Time Out The Torch Singer is a sweeping historical saga that takes the reader from the horrors of Nazi-occupied Poland to the glittery excesses of Hollywood in the 1940’s and 50’s: the rise and fall of Sonya Saint-Amant, a singer who schemes her way to fame and glory breaking all the rules. Book One, An Overnight Sensation, charts the rise of Sonya from the age of 17 in 1940, a girl dreaming of being an understudy at the Krakow Opera when Nazis raid the theater. After witnessing the summary execution of her mother by German soldiers she escapes Poland and makes her way to London. Using guile and beauty, she finds passage to America in 1943 on the Mauretania, a dangerous North Atlantic crossing on a troop ship full of men. As the ship steams north into Arctic waters evading enemy submarines, Sonya almost wins at a high-stakes game of love . . . only to arrive in New York alone and desperate but determined to become a star. “A masterpiece of storytelling. A book of constant intrigue which from the outset creates that delicious paradox of it being immediately clear that nothing is ever quite as it seems.” Daily Mail “Robert Westbrook is a born storyteller and a bit of a magician.” Ally Sheedy The Torch Singer is an unforgettable journey through the shadowlands of fame.

The Torch Singer, Book Two: An Almost Perfect Ending

The Torch Singer, Book Two: An Almost Perfect Ending
Author: Robert Westbrook
Publisher: Swan's Nest Canada
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2014-09-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1926499034

Book Two in Robert Westbrook's epic "Hollywood Noir" Torch Singer Thriller series. “An Almost Perfect Ending ranks alongside the best Hollywood noir. It takes the reader on a journey which leads relentlessly towards a final, fatal conclusion.” Daily Mail Book Two, An Almost Perfect Ending opens with sultry heroine Sonya Saint-Amant at the height of her career—a glittering, triumphant appearance at Ciro’s, the clubhouse for the stars in 1950s Hollywood where everyone wants to claim her as their friend. But in 1954, popular music is undergoing a revolution in which all but the biggest stars will be cast aside. With her looks and popularity fading, Sonya believes she has come up with the perfect plan to save her career . . . if only she can maneuver a tricky path through the many dangers that beset her, a vortex of politics, sex, blackmail, and murder . . . “Pacy and unstoppable, the second book in the The Torch Singer series takes over where the first left off, grabbing your wrist, tugging you along, refusing to let go.” Evening Standard “The Torch Singer exposes the fragility of fame. The higher the edifice the greater the risk that some element of deep-set animal emotion or human baseness will bring everything crashing down . . . and watching it happen is not just compulsive—it’s addictive and unmissable.” Event Magazine “Robert Westbrook is a born storyteller and a bit of a magician.” Ally Sheedy Ambition, blackmail, murder . . . THE TORCH SINGER is an unforgettable journey through the shadowlands of fame.

Famous Torch Singers Paper Dolls

Famous Torch Singers Paper Dolls
Author: Tom Tierney
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
Total Pages: 20
Release: 2006-02-24
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0486447448

This dazzling paper doll collection pays tribute to 16 lovely ladies of song whose intimate and distinctive vocal deliveries rang with stylish sophistication. From memorable roles in Broadway musicals and show-stopping numbers at the Folies Bergère to brilliant performances in movies and on radio and TV, these celebrated performers are represented by 16 dolls modeling 32 costumes. Included are images of Nora Bayes, Jane Froman, Ruth Etting, Mabel Mercer, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, Patti Page, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Josephine Baker, Frances Langford, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald, and Anita O'Day. Accompanied by wardrobes of satiny sheaths, elegant cocktail dresses, and billowing full-length gowns, the accurately rendered figures of the famed vocalists will delight music lovers, collectors, and paper doll fans of all ages.

The Best Torch Songs Ever

The Best Torch Songs Ever
Author: Hal Leonard Corp
Publisher: Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2004
Genre: Keyboard instrument music
ISBN: 9780634064142

(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Songbook). This second edition features 70 sad, sultry favorites full of longing: All by Myself * The Best Is Yet to Come * Bewitched * Fever * From Here to Eternity * In a Sentimental Mood * Misty * Mood Indigo * My Funny Valentine * So Far Away * Superstar * Talk to Me * Unchained Melody * and more.

Acetylene Torch Songs

Acetylene Torch Songs
Author: Sue William Silverman
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2024
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1496235754

Acetylene Torch Songs is a guidebook for writers who want their honesty, social engagement, and intimacy to reach beyond the page and transform the lives of readers with searing, indelible, and unquenchable words.

Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, and the Torch Song Tradition

Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, and the Torch Song Tradition
Author: Larry David Smith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2004-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313067872

The torch song has long been a vehicle for expression—perhaps American song's most sheerly visceral one. Two artists in particular have built upon this tradition to express their own unique outlooks on their lives and the world around them. Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, and the Torch Song Tradition combines biographical material, artist commentary, critical interpretation, and selected exemplars of the writers' work to reveal the power of authorship and the creative drive necessary to negotiate an artistic vision in the complicated mechanisms of the commercial music industry. Author Larry David Smith, as in his Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and American Song, considers the complicated intersection of biography, creative philosophy, artistic imperative, and stylistic tendencies in the work of both Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello—two songwriters with seemingly nothing in common, one famously confessional and one famously confrontational. Yet, as Smith shows so incisively, they are two personalities that prove fascinatingly complementary. Mitchell and Costello both yielded bodies of work that are cohesive, coherent, and rich in meaning. Both have made historic contributions to the singer-songwriter model, two rebellious respones to the creative and commercial compromises associated with their chosen field, and two distinct thematic responses to the torch song tradition. Smith examines these responses, offering a unique and invaluable exploration of the craft of two of the last century's most towering musical figures.

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
Author: Otto Penzler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 1170
Release: 2008-12-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307494160

The biggest, the boldest, the most comprehensive collection of Pulp writing ever assembled. Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train—a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best. Including: • Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett. • Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form. • A never before published Dashiell Hammett story. • Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many many more of whom you’ve probably never heard. • Three deadly sections–The Crimefighters, The Villains, and Dames–with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura Lippman Featuring: • Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good. • A kid so smart–he’ll die of it. • A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning–the hard way–never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger. • The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims.

Torch Songs

Torch Songs
Author: KJ Johns
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2023-09-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1039189210

When recently widowed Kay Gates moves to Sydenham, Ontario to start a new chapter in her life, she is hoping for some peace after a difficult year. However, what she finds instead is anything but idyllic. Shortly after she realizes her home is haunted by a ghost with an agenda, the house across the road is destroyed by arson, and Kay stumbles upon a murder scene next door. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to go through all of this alone. Her best friend Jules moves in after splitting with her wife, and Jo, a local baker and volunteer firefighter, quickly becomes her roomie’s plus one. Her weeks fill up with visits from her disabled adult son, Ben, and the handsome Detective Jack Murphy suddenly seems to be around an awful lot. With Kay’s supernatural encounters increasing and her own personal safety threatened, she struggles to make sense of seemingly unconnected events. And while the torch songs of potential love keep getting louder, Kay begins to realize that she needs to examine the past to make sense of the present because if she doesn’t figure it all out fast, she might be the next one burned.

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 2

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 2
Author: John Shepherd
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 713
Release: 2003-05-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1847144721

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 1 provides an overview of media, industry, and technology and its relationship to popular music. In 500 entries by 130 contributors from around the world, the volume explores the topic in two parts: Part I: Social and Cultural Dimensions, covers the social phenomena of relevance to the practice of popular music and Part II: The Industry, covers all aspects of the popular music industry, such as copyright, instrumental manufacture, management and marketing, record corporations, studios, companies, and labels. Entries include bibliographies, discographies and filmographies, and an extensive index is provided.