As this evocative novel opens, it's been five years since former jazz trumpet star Ronnie Reboulet, a charismatic yet broken man, has picked up his horn. His companion, Betty Millard, herself a survivor of cancer, is a strong and soulful woman who can see right through him. She has helped him cobble together a life free of drugs, away from the music business, even though she wants more than anything else to hear him play again.

After Ronnie's estranged daughter Rae, a single mother and an aspring singer of dubious talent, re-enters his life, Ronnie bravely attempts a comeback that will have readers rooting for him, even as his life with Betty hangs in the balance. Set against the backdrop of Patty Hearst's kidnapping in 1970s San Francisco, and composed in short, sensual scenes that segue one into another like a songman's medley, BlueBossa is both a jazz novel filled with intimate music and a personal novel in which love is at peril as a man and a woman struggle to build their lives.

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