Come join SEW as it hosts Denny Bryce discussing her debut novel, WILD WOMEN AND THE BLUES, due out this spring. Jazz-age Chicago comes to vibrant life in this evocative work of historical fiction that links the stories of an ambitious chorus girl and a modern-day film student, both coming to grips with loss, forgiveness, and the limitations—and surprises—of love.
Bryce’s background is in professional marketing. She spent 20 years running an event marketing firm, during the last 10 of which she also wrote and read Buffy/Spike fan fiction. A devoted fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Angel (the TV series), she is also a classic film buff and loves genre TV.
Bryce has also taught workshops on marketing for authors and spoken on romance and historical fiction panels at the Strand Book Store and BookCon in New York City, the Baltimore Book Festival, and the Gaithersburg Book Festival. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society (HSN), the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) and Novelists, Inc. Denny also completed the 2019 TIN HOUSE WINTER WORKSHOP (a prestigious literary workshop) in Portland, Oregon, and is a 2020 PTICH WARS adult mentor.
Wild Women and the Blues Synopsis:
1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose.
2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he’s right—if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he’s expecting .
Piece by piece, Honoree reveals her past and her secrets, while Sawyer fights tooth and nail to keep his. It’s a story of courage and ambition, hot jazz and illicit passions. And as past meets present, for Honoree, it’s a final chance to be truly heard and seen before it’s too late. No matter the cost . . .
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