Sweet, soft, plenty rhythm /

Cyrus "Circus" Palmer is a mixed-race jazz trumpet player in Boston; he's rarely short of gigs, but, at 40, his career doesn't seem headed for the next level. Meanwhile, his love life is spinning out control, due mainly to his propensity for packing his horn and heading for the door whenever one of the many women in his life attempts to draw him closer. First-time novelist Warrell tells this powerful, polyphonic tale mainly through the voices of those people Circus loves and leaves, from his ex-wife, Pia, through drummer Maggie, bartender Peach, the enigmatic Odessa, and, most important, his 15-year-old daughter, Koko. All of these narrators appear and reappear as recurring motifs in the fugue-like tapestry of Circus' life, each playing a variation on the theme of this deeply flawed but charismatic man's hold on them, but also displaying their determination to establish individual lives. Maggie, whom Circus abandons after she reveals she's pregnant with his child, and Koko, struggling with her sexual coming-of-age, are at the emotional center of a novel that ripples with passion and the ineffable sadness of relationships run aground. And yet, at the end, there is an uplifting sense of possibility, a deeply satisfying tonic chord set against the dissonance that has come before. Jazz, Circus reminds us, "sweetens the soul," and so it is in this remarkably assured, unforgettable debut.

Warrell unfurls in her engaging debut the story of a peripatetic trumpet player. Circus Palmer, a touring 40-year-old jazz musician and lothario, has recently learned in Miami that his main love interest, drummer Maggie Swan, is pregnant. Circus, ever the ladies' man, panics, rushing back to his home turf in Boston ("It was the going he liked, liked the unclasping of links, liked getting to whatever was waiting at the other end of leaving," Warrell writes). His former wife, Pia, still quietly clinging to hope for reconciliation, manages to keep him involved in raising their 15-year-old daughter, Koko, who's beginning to have her sexual awakening. Meanwhile, a long-awaited meeting with a producer ends badly for Circus, sending him on a bender. Soon thereafter, Circus, pining for Maggie, visits instead a girlfriend in Providence, a trip that irrevocably alters his future. The author evocatively describes the women who inspire Circus's music and his lust--one brings his playing to ecstatic heights by shimmying her shoulders; another makes his horn "coo" with her "girlish giggle"--and finds the sadness deep in his heart. Warrell hits all the right notes. Agent: Chad Luibl, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Sept.)

DEBUT "Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm," proclaimed Jelly Roll Morton, and Warrell plays her exceptional first novel with plenty of rhythm and tenderness, delivered in brisk, mordantly gorgeous language that has its own natural flow. At its heart is fortyish jazz trumpeter Circus Palmer, a powerful, leonine, charismatic heartbreaker who performs regularly but hasn't made it to the top of his profession, and the women connected to him. There's Maggie, a brilliant drummer who has just learned she's pregnant; put-upon ex-wife Pia; Koko, his confused teenager daughter, desperate for his love and attention; Odessa, a woman mourning loss whom Circus helps; pickups like bartender Peach and drama teacher Angela (Circus is decidedly a love-them-and-leave-them type, engaging on his terms only); and more. Each woman has her own life, her own story--none is defined by Circus, though all are touched by him--and as in any good jazz piece these stories play off one another seamlessly. In the end, Circus isn't just damager but damaged, coming to terms with his limits and learning to reach out, an understanding that Warrell movingly delivers. VERDICT A highly recommended story of love and life that makes beautiful music.

An impressive debut novel weaves storylines of lost love, coming-of-age, and midlife crisis to chronicle a Boston-based jazz musician's reckoning with the untidy spoils of his myriad affairs. Trumpeter Cyrus Palmer--better known to family, friends, and fans as Circus--seems irresistible to just about every woman who crosses his path. The spring of 2013 finds him turning 40 and wondering whether this magnetism has been more a curse than a blessing. He has just found out, for instance, that Maggie Swan, a feisty percussionist he digs the most at the moment, is pregnant with his child. He's not overjoyed about this news as it coincides with a potentially career-transforming project; and especially because, as he tells Maggie, "I already got a kid barely talks to me." Indeed, Koko, Circus' moody, truculent 14-year-old daughter from a previous liaison, may well be the only female on the planet impervious to his charms. A big reason for which is that Circus, saying the least, isn't all that good at being an attentive, empathetic dad to Koko at a time when her own emotional life is as chaotic as her dad's. Circus' clumsy if earnest attempts to bond with Koko seem perpetually interrupted by impromptu engagements with his loves past and present, including Pia, Koko's tormented mother; Peach, a warmhearted neighborhood bartender; Angela, a drama professor who sees Circus as "a beautiful, beautiful failure"; and assorted others who are dazzled, confounded, exasperated, or obsessed with him. Vivid, poignant portraits of these women are interspersed with the separate struggles of both Circus and Koko to get through transitions that have little in common with each other except pain and shame. Though this is her first novel, Warrell displays delicately wrought characterization and a formidable command of physical and emotional detail. Her more intimate set pieces deliver sensual, erotic vibrations, and, most crucially for a novel that takes its title from Jelly Roll Morton, she knows how to write about the way it feels to deliver jazz--and receive it. A captivating modern romance evoking love, loss, recovery, and redemption. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.