The Singer Sisters
On sale
6th August 2024
Price: £20
‘Compulsory summer reading’ Laura Jane Williams
‘Arguably better than Daisy Jones and The Six‘ InStyle
‘Utterly addictive’ Woman’s Own
‘Atmospheric and absorbing’ Andrea Mara
LOVE CONNECTS THEM.
MUSIC DIVIDES THEM.
SECRETS COULD TEAR THEM APART . . .
_________________________________________________________________
1967: Judie Zingerman is rising to stardom as one half of folk duo the Singer Sisters.
As she and her sister Sylvia tour coast to coast, crowds can’t get enough of Judie’s confessional lyrics. Everyone can see they’re heading for new heights. Yet something is about to push them off course…
1996: Alt-rocker Emma Cantor is playing the festival circuit, with her sights on a record deal. Emma has never understood why her mother, folk icon Judie Zingerman, gave up music at the height of her success.
But as Emma is catapulted into the spotlight as an MTV darling and LA It girl, fame brings its own heartache. Could discovering her mother’s long-kept secrets help Emma find her path again?
_________________________________________________________________
If you loved DAISY JONES AND THE SIX, this is the perfect page-turner to escape with this summer. Let yourself be transported across the decades by the story of this notorious musical family, following their rises to stardom, their heartbreaks and mistakes, and the secrets that their fans could never imagine.
‘My favourite read of the summer’ Kristen Perrin
‘Absorbing and full of heart’ Adelle Waldman
‘What a pleasure to read this book!’ Robin MacArthur
‘Totally fresh and original . . . heart-wrenching’ Rob Sheffield
‘I devoured [it]’ Bethany Ball
‘I was sad to reach the final page’ Elizabeth Graver
‘Arguably better than Daisy Jones and The Six‘ InStyle
‘Utterly addictive’ Woman’s Own
‘Atmospheric and absorbing’ Andrea Mara
LOVE CONNECTS THEM.
MUSIC DIVIDES THEM.
SECRETS COULD TEAR THEM APART . . .
_________________________________________________________________
1967: Judie Zingerman is rising to stardom as one half of folk duo the Singer Sisters.
As she and her sister Sylvia tour coast to coast, crowds can’t get enough of Judie’s confessional lyrics. Everyone can see they’re heading for new heights. Yet something is about to push them off course…
1996: Alt-rocker Emma Cantor is playing the festival circuit, with her sights on a record deal. Emma has never understood why her mother, folk icon Judie Zingerman, gave up music at the height of her success.
But as Emma is catapulted into the spotlight as an MTV darling and LA It girl, fame brings its own heartache. Could discovering her mother’s long-kept secrets help Emma find her path again?
_________________________________________________________________
If you loved DAISY JONES AND THE SIX, this is the perfect page-turner to escape with this summer. Let yourself be transported across the decades by the story of this notorious musical family, following their rises to stardom, their heartbreaks and mistakes, and the secrets that their fans could never imagine.
‘My favourite read of the summer’ Kristen Perrin
‘Absorbing and full of heart’ Adelle Waldman
‘What a pleasure to read this book!’ Robin MacArthur
‘Totally fresh and original . . . heart-wrenching’ Rob Sheffield
‘I devoured [it]’ Bethany Ball
‘I was sad to reach the final page’ Elizabeth Graver
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Reviews
A breezy, compelling read with momentous questions at its core. What does it mean to be parented sufficiently―to be loved well? What is worth sacrificing for the sake of artistic ambition? Does the muse work on a timeframe, or will it wait? Ultimately, Seltzer presents an entrancing vision not of having it all at the same time, but of finding satisfaction, even triumph, anyway
What a story: artists, sisters, daughters, mothers, rivals, guitars. The Singer Sisters is a totally fresh and original rock & roll saga of a family full of formidable, creative, unforgettable women. Seltzer writes about different music generations with an expert's eye and a fan's ear, nailing all the details of how songs become part of our lives, as the singers connect and clash over the years. She makes the whole novel flow like a brilliantly complex but heart-wrenching love song
I devoured The Singer Sisters in a day! Seltzer's stellar writing is addictive and all-consuming and her characters felt so vividly real, I wished I could go and buy their albums afterwards. An engrossing, heartfelt story of family, secrets, and unforgettable women. I loved it.
Immersive, atmospheric, and absorbing, with three beautifully interwoven stories, The Singer Sisters somehow left me nostalgic for a time and place I've never experienced outside this wonderful novel
An epic! . . . a rock & roll saga of a folk-rock family through two drama-filled generations, the Sixties and the Nineties
Utterly addictive
What a pleasure to read this book! A delightful journey through the folk and rock scenes from the 60s through the early aughts, told through the kaleidoscopic voices of one family. I loved dipping down into the early folk scenes of Cambridge and New York, the feminist rock of the 90s, the pop industry of the 2000s, and seeing how a family can be torn apart, and stitched back together, via the miracle of song
You'll be drawn in by the music and the free-wheeling folk scene Seltzer so deftly and convincingly creates, but what will stay with you long after the novel's end are the main characters-Judie, Emma, Sylvia and Rose-four vibrant women bound and sometimes tormented by their fierce family ties and yet who find their way to a most glorious harmony
'Books To See You Through Summer' . . . Two women in music, three decades apart. The one constant? The men controlling the industry
I devoured The Singer Sisters as it swung between the 1960s folk scene and the 1990s alt rock scene. Seltzer spins a profound web, showing the complex intergenerational push and pull between mothers, daughters, sisters. Long kept secrets are revealed through songs and albums and mysterious strangers
An expertly-imagined family drama, suffused with hard truths, deep betrayal, and a most generous, surprisingly steadfast love
In prose as musical as its subject matter, Sarah Seltzer takes us into an unforgettable family of singer-songwriters, exploring maternal ambivalence, the call of art, and the messy, vibrant, ever-changing state of family life. I was sad to reach the final page
My favourite read of the summer . . . Women are the beating heart of this book, and it's a magnetic story about siblings, mothers and daughters; the things about each other we fail to see; and a yearning to be seen - all with the pulse of musical creativity driving it. It was one of those books that, when I finished it, I wished I could be friends with the characters
A superb novel - inventive, original, and extremely intelligent. It is also fast-paced, absorbing and full of heart, with a well-drawn and appealing cast of characters whose fates the reader comes to care about deeply. I felt bereft when it was over
Family drama, unexpected love stories and of course, music, make this pulse with life. It's arguably better than Daisy Jones and The Six...
A gloriously accomplished debut novel that reads like Sarah Saltzer has been crafting stories for decades. The Singer Sisters is a nuanced family drama disguised as a rock n roll tale of fame, fortune, and what it feels like to be a person who simply must create. Compulsory summer reading.