Nicky Penttila

Part of my revision process is to make up sample copy for the back cover of the book; it keeps me on track as I cut and paste as well as showing if I’ve come up with a marketable story. Here is the current version:

What’s the harm in a little white lie?

Especially when it could carry so much good: new hope for a wounded solidier, catharsis after long years of war—and an opportunity for lady composer Olivia Delancey to finally hear her music in public.

Depends on whom you tell it to.

Publisher Will Marsh refuses to compound the sins of his father’s generation by taking money to print propaganda in his newspaper. That stand has made him enemies on both sides of the political aisle—and an enviable number of subscribers.

But now that the wars have ended, circulation is dropping, and so are the paper’s profits. With the bank and his stockholders pounding at the door, Will must find something else to entice fickle London readers to grab his paper from among a dozen others. Why not publish the score of the “Tune that Took on Bonaparte,” by a wounded vet, no less?

As Olivia struggles to keep her secrets from this unsuitably alluring publisher, and Will fights to find the facts without losing his hold on this sharp-eyed lady angel, both discover another sort of truth.

Being the talk of London can be bad—or very, very good.

Click on over to the first chapter of MUSICAL TIES (there’s also a link on this page in the right-side column, under “MORE.”