Book cover for Frog Music: A Novel by Emma Donoghue

Frog Music

A Novel

2014 Released
416 Pages
8-9 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Little, Brown and CompanyISBN 9780316324663

From the New York Times bestselling author of Room, a young French burlesque dancer living in San Francisco is ready to risk anything in order to solve her friend’s murder—but only if the killer doesn’t get her first.

Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.

The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice—if he doesn't track her down first. The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It's the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.

In thrilling, cinematic style, Frog Music digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue's lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.

"Her greatest achievement yet . . . Emma Donoghue shows more than range with Frog Music—she shows genius." —Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life.

Emma Donoghue

Born in Dublin in 1969, and now living in Canada, Emma Donoghue writes fiction (novels and short stories, contemporary and historical), as well as drama for screen and stage. Room was shortlisted for the Booker, Commonwealth and Orange Prizes, selling nearly three million copies in forty languages. Donoghue was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film adaptation starring Brie Larson. She also co-wrote the film of her novel The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh, as well as H Is for Hawk, from the memoir by Helen Macdonald. Her plays include adaptations of her novels Room and The Pull of the Stars, and a folk musical, The Wind Coming Over the Sea., Born in Dublin in 1969, and now living in Canada, Emma Donoghue writes fiction (novels and short stories, contemporary and historical), as well as drama for screen and stage. Room was shortlisted for the Booker, Commonwealth and Orange Prizes, selling nearly three million copies in forty languages. Donoghue was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film adaptation starring Brie Larson. She also co-wrote the film of her novel The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh, as well as H Is for Hawk, from the memoir by Helen Macdonald. Her plays include adaptations of her novels Room and The Pull of the Stars, and a folk musical, The Wind Coming Over the Sea.

More by Emma Donoghue

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