Cover reveal: DUET FOR ONE

When pre-publication blurbs make your cry, and other stuff I'm excited about

Dear Friends,

Here’s the cover of my next novel, DUET FOR ONE, coming out May 6, 2025. All thanks to Regal House Publishing for making it happen. You can pre-order DUET FOR ONE here.

I have been graced with incredibly generous pre-publication blurbs. The first is from Jai Chakrabarti, a writer of eloquence and depth. Check out his novel A PLAY FOR THE END OF THE WORLD and his short story collection A SMALL SACRIFICE FOR AN ENORMOUS HAPPINESS.

“Martha Anne Toll’s new novel is a beautiful meditation on love and the great vessel of time. Begin reading Duet for One to be stirred by its symphonic prose, and soon you’ll harmonize and fall in love with its unforgettable characters.”

—Jai Chakrabarti

Jai and I had a beautiful conversation at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn when THREE MUSES came out. You can listen to it here.

Huge thanks to Lydia Kiesling, author of two terrific novels, THE GOLDEN STATE and MOBILITY for this:

“Duet for One is a lovely story about artistry, time, memory, and romance. Martha Anne Toll has a wonderful way of writing about music. It is a balm to the spirit!”

—Lydia Kiesling

And this from Pauls Toutonghi, author and mentor to me, whose most recent [wonderful] novel, REFUGEE OCEAN, with a write-up from the UN High Commission on Refugees, is just out in paperback.

“Music—like love—is a challenge to both the senses and the intellectual mind. In this poignant and attentively-written novel, Martha Anne Toll writes about the triumphs and sorrows of these two elements of human life, and considers how they might intertwine. Duet for One unfolds with symphonic sweep, each of its movements revealing deeper layers of emotion and insight into the central characters. The great works—works by Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Paganini, Mozart, Smetana—serve as the backdrop for Toll’s clever and intricate storytelling. Truly, a memorable novel.”

—Pauls Toutonghi

I’m so grateful.

A bit about the novel from the publisher:

Duet for One is a lush and rewarding love story that follows the journey from grief to love within the immersive world of classical music.

Haunted by his youthful romance with Dara, gifted and sensitive violinist Adam must face himself before moving forward. Duet opens at the graveside of Adam’s mother, Adele Pearl, wife and partner in a famous two-piano team. Adam’s father, Victor, stands bereft of both spouse and piano career, while Adam realizes his mother was not there for him. Why have Adam’s relationships with an array of talented women left him desolate? Dara, a former viola player, and an English professor flattened by divorce, refuses to consider what she lost in Adam. Martha Anne Toll’s Duet for One delivers a moving crescendo of loss, connection, and our eternal longing for the possibility of love, to follow her lauded debut, Three Muses.

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I also wanted to share two debuts I’m really excited about: Varun Gauri’s probing first novel about a contemporary arranged marriage FOR THE BLESSINGS OF JUPITER AND VENUS, and Patrica Coral’s forthcoming memoir, WOMEN SURROUNDED BY WATER: A Memoir (Machete) evoking “the beauty, love, and language of her family and of Puerto Rico.” If you’re in the DMV, Varun will be at Politics & Prose’s Connecticut Avenue Store at 5 pm this Sunday, October 13, and Coral will be at the Union Market Politics & Prose at 6 PM on November 2.

Finally, it was a joy to hear Edwidge Danticat discuss her new essay collection, WE’RE ALONE with author and literary activist Glory Edim (Well-Read Black Girl). I was delighted to introduce her on behalf of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation; she won our PEN/Malamud Prize for Excellence in the Short Story. There’s nothing Danticat can’t do, essays, short stories, novels, you name it. Her insights into the Haitian-American diaspora, and into immigration and language are unique and revelatory.

Edwidge Danticat and fellow PEN/Faulkner Board Member Ericka Taylor.

Glory Edim doing her thing.

P.S. ICYMI, here’s last week’s newsletter: Singing on a Friday morning.