Tell It to My Heart: How I Lost My S#*T, Conquered My Fear, and Found My Voice captures Taylor Dayne's ascent against all odds, and the stories behind the dance soundtrack of our lives. From her early life growing up in a challenging blue-collar Long Island home in the 1960s and 1970s through her years touring as a chart-topping musician through New York, LA, Shanghai, London, Paris, and Tokyo in the 1980s and 1990s, she tells-almost-all about her experiences with renowned talents including Michael Jackson, Elton John, and Whitney Houston. Readers will be immersed in her enduring 30-year career, performing for audiences worldwide, as she raises twins as a single mother by choice. Taylor has a powerful voice, not only as a singer, but as a storyteller as well. Her personal journey is proof that childhood reverie can become reality. The humor, strength, resilience and grace that led her to stardom are woven through the scenes of her book--showing how vulnerability turns out to be strength, and how strength comes from somewhere inside when you least expect it. Tell It to My Heart should be read by fans, musicians, artists, and women of all ages. She inspires us to live our lives with courage--to raise our voices, to take action, to believe in ourselves, and to never give up on our dreams. Taylor describes her memoir: "It's gritty, it's real, and it's truthful. It's about love, which is good even when it doesn't last, and God, who is good, even when it seems like He's being kind of a dick. It's also about friendship, but most of all, it's about the voice which was my salvation. At fifty-fffrrshx, I feel like I'm the closest I've ever been to knowing peace, knowing who I am and what I need. Loving, learning, mentoring and mothering--these are tall tasks that require a strong backbone of authenticity and integrity. I hope this book will inspire readers to do the same."

In 1977, when Zhongmei Lei was 11 years old, she learned that the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy was having open auditions. She'd already taken dance lessons, but everyone said a poor country girl would never get into the academy, especially without any connections in the Communist Party of the 1970s. But Zhongmei, whose name means Faithful Plum, persisted, traveled for three days and two nights to get to Beijing and eventually beat out 60,000 other girls. But getting in was easy compared to staying in, as Zhongmei soon learned. Without those all-important connections, she was just a little girl on her own, far away from family. But her determination, talent, and sheer force of will were not something the teachers or other students expected, and soon it was apparent that Zhongmei was not to be underestimated. Zhongmei became a famous dancer, and founded her own dance company, which made its New York debut when she was in just her late 20s. In A Girl Named Faithful Plum, her husband and renowned journalist, Richard Bernstein, has written a fascinating account of one girl's struggle to go from the remote farmlands of China to the world's stages, and the lengths she went to in order to follow her dream.