Here’s the class description:  “Agents often only read the first ten pages of a novel before deciding if they want you as a client. Slush readers for magazines decide within a few paragraphs whether your short story is right for them. We’ll practice techniques to make your manuscript grab the attention of an agent or editor from the first paragraph on. Students will provide a one-page sample of their writing for the instructor.”

Published Aug 1, 2011 (forthcoming)

About the Book

Music scholar Frederica Bannister is thrilled when she beats her bitter rival, Kristian North, for the chance to be transferred back to 1861 Tuscany to observe firsthand the brilliant Johannes Brahms. Frederica will not only get to see Brahms in his prime; she’ll also try to solve a mystery that has baffled music experts for years.

But once in Tuscany, Frederica’s grip on reality quickly unravels. She instantly falls under Brahms’ spell-and finds herself envious of his secret paramour, the beautiful, celebrated concert pianist Clara Schumann. In a single move, Frederica makes a bold and shocking decision that changes everything…

When Frederica fails to return home, it is Kristian North who is sent back in time to Tuscany to find her. There, Kristian discovers that Frederica indeed holds the key to unraveling Brahms’ greatest secret. But now, Frederica has a dark secret of her own—one that puts everyone around her in devastating peril…

Reviews

From Publishers Weekly:
“Marley’s second excursion into musical history (after 2010′s Mozart’s Blood) plays what-if with the relationship between Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, 14 years Schumann’s junior. Musicologists from our own near future compete for the opportunity to ‘transfer’ back in time and observe their study subjects firsthand for eight hours. Unattractive, frustrated Frederica Bannister gets her wealthy father to pull a few strings, undergoes the transfer—and does not return. Kristian North, enraged at losing the chance to observe Brahms, feels vindicated when the transfer scientists call him in to go after Frederica. The writing is competent and well paced, and Kristian is a sympathetic, heroic figure.”

From Historical Novels Review, Editor’s Choice:

“This finely researched tale speculates on Brahms and Schumann’s relationship. The characters, setting and plot convince the reader of the veracity of the unfolding story. Unexpected plots and subplots and memorable characters keep the reader hooked from the opening sentence.
The Brahms Deception is one of the best books I have read in long time, and I recommend it very highly. I am looking forward to reading Mozart’s Blood, Marley’s previous novel.”–Monica E. Spence

From Romantic Times:

“Combines time travel, romance, historical figures, and a thrilling plot to captivate readers from beginning to end.  Marley’s knack for combining historical intrigue and romance will keep readers with a love for books like Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife and A.S. Byatt’s Possession on the edge of their seats.”

–RT Book Reviews, 4 1/2 Stars

From Tor.com:

The Brahms Deception is the follow-up to Louise Marley’s Mozart’s Blood. (I wrote about this novel here, and the new book has a few glancing references to its protagonist, Octavia Voss, but the ties are light — it’s not a sequel.) It is a book that will put readers in mind of A.S. Byatt’s unforgettable 1990 Booker Prize Winner, Possession: A Romance. Both novels, after all, depict academics who discover a secret love affair between the heroes who’ve become the raison d’etre of their careers. Both have intertwined love stories that play out in the past and present.

In Possession, Byatt weaves her literary lovers — Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte — from whole cloth, while making it seem impossible that they aren’t part of the English literary canon. She achieves this by creating portions of their poetry and building a vividly-evoked culture of scholarship around the two. Marley is writing about music, not poetry, and she chooses real composers, authors of music that is woven deeply into the tapestry of Western culture. The fictional romance between Schumann and Brahms is stitched into a small gap within their well-documented personal histories. It is a classic alternate-history technique, well-conceived and carefully executed.

–Alyx Dellamonica

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Background and Other Notes of Interest

Clara Schumann is remembered principally as the widow of the great and tragic composer Robert Schumann, who died in an asylum at a young age, leaving Clara with seven children to raise.  Clara was, in fact, one of the most celebrated concert pianists of the nineteenth century, and her career, beginning when she was only nine, spanned sixty-one years.  She was known as a great beauty, and she supported herself and her family solely with her income as a performer for all that time, no easy feat in a century in which women were expected to stay at home and out of the public eye.  She also left behind a lovely, but small, collection of her compositions.

There are some lovely pictures of Clara and samples of her music here, and do listen to Stella Doufexis’s gorgeous recording of her Lied, “Liebst du um Schonheit.”

Here’s a gorgeous instrumental recording of Brahms’s famous lullaby, which wasn’t completed until well after the time period of the novel:  Brahms Lullaby.

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Excerpt

The Brahms Deception

Prelude

Her reflection in the ebony wood of the Gewandhaus piano disturbed her.  She wished she were using a score so the pages of music would block the image.  Her eyes were too large.  Her chin was small and pointed, and her mouth an unexceptionable rosebud, but her eyes were those of a fawn, enormous, oddly shaped, gleaming darkly under the flickering gas lights.  She looked terrified, and she was.

The long skirts of her blue silk dress spilled over the piano stool.  She had to kick the hem free of the pedals.  The fitted sleeves puffed above the elbow, making her wrists look like white sticks.  A great, childish bow, blue to match her dress, adorned the back of her hair.  It embarrassed her, but she had no power over the choice of it.

She had no power at all, in fact, not in the matter of the bow or in any of the other details of this performance.  Her father had chosen the dress, had supervised the dressing of her hair, had dictated what she would eat for dinner and when.  He had chosen the music for her programme,

had selected the Gewandhaus for her debut, had collected the ticket money with his own hands.

If she looked up, past the shining lid of the piano, she would see his clear, hard eyes watching her from the proscenium.

She kept her eyes lowered.  She must concentrate.  Her father’s reputation as a teacher, and their future income, rested on her performance.  He had reminded her of this many times.  She had practiced until her fingers burned and her back ached.  She knew the Variations perfectly, and would play them from memory.  Some might call that vanity, but she preferred, even though she was nervous, to play without music.

She was ready.  She just wished her father would go out into the house.

She curled her fingers over the keys, took a deep breath, and began.

The first notes disappointed her, seeming frail and somehow juvenile.  The piano had sounded much stronger, much more full in her practice sessions.  She was startled by the way the bodies of the audience absorbed the resonance.

She took another breath, concerned now only about the music and what she wanted it to say.  She played the next phrases with more vigor, striking the keys with determined purpose.  Goethe was to say, one day in the near future, that she played “with the strength of six boys”.  That would mean nothing to her, but the music did.  The music made everything else tolerable.  The muscles of her arms and hands began to thrum with energy.  She knew how she wanted the notes to sound, how she could make the piano sing.  She played on with unconscious authority, an assurance beyond her years.

It began to happen.  She forgot her reflection, forgot her fatigue, forgot even her father.  Brilliant notes poured from the piano, cascading over the stage, drowning the faint hiss of the footlights as they poured into the hall.  She played from her soul.  She never hesitated, never faltered.  She drove on to the end of the Variations without once looking up from the keyboard.

She reached the cadence, and held it, letting the resonance of the chord die away on its own.  She closed her eyes, relishing the moment of a piece well played, of music created, of the expression of an inner meaning no words could describe.

When she opened her eyes, she saw her father gazing fixedly at her from the wings.  He was smiling, but it was that tight, pointed smile that meant there was something he wanted.  She stiffened.  What was it?

As the music left her, she became aware of another sound, a bigger, rougher sound.  She turned her head, seeking the source, and realized there was a roar coming from the house.

It was for her.  It was a rush of noise, gloved hands beating together, voices calling out. Brava, brava! She had forgotten for a moment where she was, how much this performance meant.  She froze.  What she was supposed to do now?

Curtsy.  That was it.  Bow.  This was her debut, and this applause was for her.

Awkwardly, she swiveled on the stool.  Her long dress caught on the pedals of the piano, and she had bend to untangle it with her hands before she could stand.  She picked up her skirts and stepped away from the piano to the edge of the stage, careful of the heat of the footlights.  She bobbed, twice, her cheeks as hot as the burning lamps at her feet.

Then, though the applause continued, she fled the stage.  She turned away from her father.  He would have to work his way around the back of the stage, dodge dusty stacks of equipment and piles of thick ropes to reach her.  She flung herself into the tiny, dim dressing room, and collapsed into the chair before the tall pier glass.

Clara Wieck stared at her murky reflection, the big blue bow framing her small head, and marveled.  She was nine years old.  She had just become a professional.

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