The Jewel of the Blues

This second novel from Chenault-Kilgore (following Long Gone, Come Home) follows Lucille Love, a Black singer who’s trying to become famous during the Jazz Age. Lucille has been performing all of her life, first doing gospel hymns with her parents as a child, then performing swing and jazz music with a group called the Troubadours when she gets older. Lucille dreams of becoming a major star, and the band’s manager is equally determined to make that happen. For several years, the group works steadily and is successful, until love affairs, gambling, and drinking get in the way. Lucille starts to meet some dangerous characters and finds out that her beloved father may have been involved in a terrible crime and that people are hunting her to get revenge. Chenault-Kilgore evokes the segregated, dangerous environment Lucille and her bandmates all live in, with talk of “sundown towns” and racist police officers. Delphina, a white woman in their entourage, has a romance with a Black musician even though they realize the disastrous consequences that could result.