Nicholas Rinaldi – författare

It is 1942 and the island of Malta is under siege by the dominant German air force. Out of the smoke and magnesium glare of bomb blast steps Rocco Raven, native of Brooklyn, New York, apprentice radioman and expert secondhand car dealer. His only contact is an American secret serviceman, Fingerley, whose rank upgrades with their every meeting and whose purpose is known to no-one but himself. Far from finding a role for Rocco, Fingerley leaves him to face the chaos alone. On only his second day there, his billet, on the top floor of a brothel, is blown to pieces. Without contacts or belongings, Rocco is left to wander the devastated streets of Valetta in a bewildered daze until he sees an apparition, a beautiful, ethereal woman. She is Melita, the Jukebox Queen of Malta, who spends her time delivering the jukeboxes wrought by her cousin from old automobile and gramophone parts to the bars and restaurants which must accommodate the beleagured civilian and military populations. It is the beginning of an extraordinary relationship that is at once passionate and guarded, which flourishes as the island's fortunes decline. Under the threat of starvation and in a world populated by the eccentrics of war, Rocco's seems to be the lone voice of sanity, until he too is affected by the madness around him and succumbs to the voluntary thrill of danger...The Jukebox Queen of Malta is an extraordinary novel of passion and intrigue set in a world which seems perilously balanced between what is real and what is not. It is a magnificently evocative piece of storytelling, where the bizarre and heady atmosphere of a society under siege masks the uneasy truce between the Allied occupiers and the Maltese natives, and where the physical beauty is only tainted by the sense of mystery desecrated.

An irresistible novel that “charts a harrowing tour through the Civil War” (Connecticut Post) and chronicles the life of Tom Thumb—the tiny man who became, in his time, America’s most famous entertainer.“I was four years old when Barnum discovered me, and soon to turn five when I first appeared on the big stage of his American Museum.” So begins the story of Tom Thumb, who at just twenty-five-inches tall, rises to global fame as America’s most beloved entertainer. With his parents’ blessing, Tom comes of age in Barnum’s five-story gallery of oddities, exploring its mystical artifacts and exotic animals between his performances to sold-out crowds. One day in the museum’s basement menagerie, Tom meets a new performer, Lavinia Warren, who stands three inches shorter than he. It’s love at first sight, and Barnum quickly arranges the largest wedding reception New York City has ever seen. As cannon fire echoes across Bull Run and Antietam, both North and South are briefly united by their fascination with “General” Tom Thumb and his beautiful, petite wife. Despite the Civil War, Tom and Lavinia embark on a honeymoon tour, where they encounter cities and people ravaged by the ongoing conflict. But as the tour winds down, an unexpected danger follows Tom and Lavinia back home. Witty, lyrical, and with a colorful cast of notable figures of the period, The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb is an evocative, poignant imagining of one man’s story, from a “master of elegant prose and psychological insight” (Entertainment Weekly).