Her club, Soul to Soul , is a popular spot in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill section. Leone is a divorced single-mother of a teenage daughter who has rebuilt her life after marriage to a controlling and emotionally abusive husband. It's been three years since the divorce. When the novel begins, she is in a comfortable relationship with her business partner and bandleader, safe, secure Cole Fleming. But Cole wants to get married.
Leone is wary of making a commitment.
She is still suffering lingering after effects of her restricting first marriage. She has worked hard to make positive changes in her life and doesn t want to regress. Leaving her job of twenty years, divorcing Steven and finally opening the club had all been acts of long overdue rebellion. She knew that. And at the same time, she felt rejuvenated as if she'd been asleep and just going through the motions for most of her life.