Songwriter Cynthia Weil ("On Broadway," "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling") delivers a first novel that's part mystery, part 1960s New York City period piece, with a strong feminist flavor.
"[B]efore I even hit a double-digit birthday, I made a decision. One day I would fly over my own rainbow and write a song like that one.... I'd make it to Oz too." Justice Jeanette ("JJ") Green is determined to break family rule #3: The Greens always become lawyers. The book opens as she takes "a giant step toward my not-so-secret dream and my parents' worst nightmare" by applying for a summer job in the famous Brill Building, where her Uncle Bernie is "the godfather of the music business," and all she wants to do is prove her talent. Sixteen-year-old JJ's first-person narrative takes readers into the heart of the factory-style music business, where JJ rubs elbows (at the keyboard) with the great "Sweet" Dulcie Brown (who's fallen on hard times and now works as a custodian in the Brill Building and who takes JJ under her wing), ends up writing music for Luke Silver, and gets to know "the godfather" perhaps a bit better than she wants to.
When Dulcie dies on the night they're to have dinner, JJ's questions to a neighbor convince her of foul play, and her lawyer lineage comes out as she probes into the matter. She discovers complicated connections between Dulcie, her Uncle Bernie and Luke's father that bring her out of innocence and into the music industry's underbelly. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness