Still on hiatus from the fancy book review people, so I’ve been reading and reading the stuff that’s piled up over here. It feels good to make even a small dent in the TBR mountain ranges.

So check out my review for Allison Harnby’s It’s Not You, It’s Me. One of those fun reads that stops just short of being a West of Mars Recommended Book and … hmm. Maybe I need a new category. West of Mars Good Book.

What do you think?

The book review people haven’t called lately, which has been a good thing. Everyone needs a break now and then, even though I miss the paychecks. (Go buy some of my books and make up for that, will ya?)

One of the best benefits has been that I’ve been able to catch up on the books that have piled up around here. Two of those books (but not all) have been Rock Fiction.

The Road to Fluffer, Dan Schell’s debut novel was a lot of fun. Read my review.

The pseudonymous author Rosemary Martin hit the market in 2005 with It’s a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod Murder. Looks like it’s out of print and only available for Kindle, but … well, see my thoughts on it.

I love meeting other authors of Rock Fiction. You guys know this: Rather than being threatened or worrying that you’re going to steal my audience, I’m glad there are more and more of us spreading the rocking goodness. If we keep it up — and keep up the excellence — we’ll make Rock Fiction a contender of a genre yet.

That brings me to today’s author: Toni Kenyon, whose bio sounds an awful lot like mine, at least when it comes to rock and roll and kitties. (No, the two are NOT oxymorons. Sheesh.)

Her new book is called Private Love in a Public Place, and here’s the song that makes her think of it:

Better Man by Robbie Williams … “Once you’ve found that lover you’re homeward bound, love is all around, love is all around…”

Robbie’s performance of this song (live at Knebworth) epitomizes the struggle Julian has with Jules the man and Julian the performer. I love this clip and I can’t watch it now without thinking about Jules.

Robbie Williams… not someone I’d have expected from a rocking chick! Just goes to prove that musical tastes, like reading tastes, can’t be defined by genre.

I’m curious about this Jules dude. Are you? Here’s the blurb. That ought to satisfy us both.

Mags O’Brien lives on the alcohol-soaked, drug-enhanced concert circuit, managing out-of-control rocker Julian MacAvoy. She helps him spread his musical gospel to his adoring followers, despite the fast-spinning turnstile on his bedroom door, and the broken hearts he leaves in his wake.

Mags believes she’s immune to Julian’s magnetic personality but when controversy hits the tour, she finds herself in danger of falling at his feet, slave to his appetites and her own desire and need.

Julian refuses to be tamed, but the pressure of the ravenous crowds clamps tighter and tighter around him. His chaotic world starts to crumble when he realizes his motivation to continue touring comes from an unobtainable woman. Can he force her to make the agonizing choice between himself and her estranged husband?

An erotic and candid look at life on the road.

A woman managing an out-of-control, alcohol-soaked rocker… shades of Sharon Osbourne, perhaps? Let’s read it and see!

Buy it here:
Smashwords (Affiliate link. Use it. I need a new roof.)
iBookstore
Amazon

Visit with Toni:
Web
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads

Seriously. There is such a thing as Record Store Day.

It seems fitting to me that I, as an author and champion of Rock Fiction, set up some sort of fun promotion.

Here’s what I’m thinking…

I invite everyone who likes to post fiction on their blog, if they write Rock Fiction or not, to write some flash fiction celebrating Record Store Day or music in general. I’ll set up a linkie so you can share your link and draw in new friends. We’ll make it like a blog carnival of old.

And if you’ve written a work of Rock Fiction, why not consider giving a copy or two of your books away? Again, I’ll set up a linkie for that, too and we’ll have ourselves a Hop!

More details will follow as we get closer, complete with the promised linkies and other ways to share the fun (I can hear my IT guy swearing at me now). Let me know if you’re interested in any way — and other ideas for the day are welcome, too.

I did this last time I had a readalong — I absolutely devoured the book.

On the one hand, this is good. I’m picking good stuff right now (although the streak’s got to end at some point. Hopefully not soon, though).

On the other, are you guys able to get the book? Are you really reading along? Or am I totally outpacing you?

Go here for my review.

I have more than enough to read. I really do.

So what was I doing in the library, letting my eye get caught by a book called Heavy Metal and You?

Well, trying to avoid exactly that problem, to be honest. I’ve still got books other authors have sent me, I started a book when I was between reviews for The World’s Toughest Book Critics that I’ve yet to finish, and TWTBC must like me enough that I got this current assignment an entire week before the last one was due. In other words: they’re filling my reading time, all by themselves, and all the other books around here continue to lie in wait for me.

But… how do you walk away from a book called Heavy Metal and You? Especially when a line in the acknowledgements reads: Special thanks to Tom, Jeff, Dave, and Paul, for being Slayer. (However, we won’t stop to ask why founding member Kerry King didn’t get a thanks but Paul Bostaph, who tends to play with them when Dave isn’t, did.)

The author is Christopher Krovatin, and he’s written some other things since Heavy Metal and You, settling into the horror genre after this stint in YA. The publication date is 2005, which feels old by today’s standard of immediacy. And the publisher? Push, a division of Scholastic.

So… go pick up a copy and read along! Leave your comments here or on the West of Mars Fans page over at Facebook.

You’d think a book about the Beatles would have to be Rock Fiction, right?

So did I.

Until I sat down and started reading Alan Goldsher’s Paul is Dead. There’s nothing Rock Fiction about this book. In fact, what started out as amusing quickly turned annoying. Yeah, it was funny to see Mick Jagger as such a putz, even though I am rather fond of Mick.

It was too one-joke and not enough… well, anything else.

So… no to Paul is Dead as Rock Fiction. And no to it as being a book I even finished.

Author David Biddle got a hold of me. He’s written a work of Rock Fiction, and he wanted me to review it.

But… I am horribly behind with my reviews that aren’t for The World’s Toughest Book Critics. So I said no, but that he was, as usual, more than willing to step into the Featured New Book Spotlight for a week.

Well, you guys know how swamped I’ve been with the editing. Maybe you’ve even been one of the people who’s lately been asking me for expanded services. So conversation with David has been slow. And then the holidays hit, and who wants to be posted during the holidays? And then, my feed went down, so I held off again…

That brings us to today. So… because I’ve taken up WAY too much of your precious time already with my saga, let’s get to David.

Hey, David! What song makes you think of your book?

Beyond the Will of God is a rather unique, highly psychedelic novel about the mysteries of loud guitar music and altered states of consciousness. Years ago, after an all-night state of wonder (hopefully you know what that means), I flashed on the notion that our great deceased entertainers, particularly musicians like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison, could possibly still connect to us through their music. I was 17. It was 1975. I was a crazy kid. 25 years later I completed Beyond the Will of God: A Jill Simpson Mystery. It was finally published this year.

The story is chock full of references to every kind of music — from Elvis’ first hit “That’s All Right” and Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye,” to The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm,” the Grateful Dead’s “Playing in the Band,” and Sun Ra’s improvisational jamming Arkestra. But one song rides high over all the others — Jimi Hendrix’s “1983 … (A Merman I Should Turn to Be).” That’s the song that got me so riled up with this notion of musical mystery. It’s a long (nearly 14 minutes), nutty composition that Hendrix described as science fiction poetry. He worked harder on this single piece than all the others on his defining album Electric Ladyland.

At one point, just before a crazy, beautiful, super over-dubbed guitar solo, he sings: “Anyway, you know good and well/It would be beyond the will of God/And the grace of the king…”

Now, I’m not a very religious person (though I do think about spiritual stuff all the time), but that phrase “beyond the will of God” just smacked me upside the head. To me, it said all there needs to be said about why people seek altered states of consciousness.

And the song … well, the song is still an anthem about those wild days of running free. Jimi played all the instruments on it. He was as unbridled and infinite with his vision of the possibilities of music as anyone has ever been. Had he lived, I’m sure he would have gone even further off into that realm. It’s a beautiful and rarefied realm. He had definitely gone beyond the will of God. And he made it possible for me to do the same with my story years later.

Partial lyrics from “1983 …”

Well it’s too bad that our friends can’t be with us today
Well it’s too bad
The machine that we built
Would never save us that’s what they say
That’s why they ain’t comin’ with us today
And they also said it’s impossible
For a man to live and breathe undrerwater
Forever was a main complaint
Yeah and they also threw this in my face they said
Anyway you know good and well
It would be beyond the will of god
And the grace of the king
Grace of the king
Yeah

For the full set of lyrics, go here.

Song on YouTube (this is, ironically, one of those pieces of work that Hendrix would never do live)

Ready for the book blurb?? I sure am!

If you’re looking for something different to read this year, Beyond the Will of God is a mystery/thriller that goes completely off the grid. As much as it begins with a murder, the story ultimately points at secrets to many of the unresolved conspiracies people have wondered about for years.

Police detective Jill Simpson is investigating the murder of an Amish teenager outside of Columbia, Missouri. Tabloid reporter Frank Harris has been sent into the heartlands to interview a clairvoyant who claims she is having an affair with Elvis. As these two work first separately and then as a team, the storyline twists and turns to include bigger questions that will change their lives forever.

Beyond the Will of God is a cross between a Tony Hillerman mystery, Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and Carlos Castaneda’s Yaqui Sorcerer series. It is serious yet playful, questioning and entertaining. You could call it a YA novel for Boomers. You could call it a paranormal fairy tale for refugees from another time. Or you could just call it weird, a bit sexy, and a good winter read.

Buy at Amazon

Buy at Barnes and Noble

Buy at IWriteReadandRate

I’ve been so busy of late with editing, it seems like everything else has fallen by the wayside. But no worries, my friends. In between reading and writing reviews for those nice people who pay me for my thoughts, I’ve spent some time with a varied list of Rock Fiction.

The Girl Band handed me a young adult novel, Dancing Queen. Read the review here.

As I work my way through what’s piled up around here, which is way too much, I took on the challenge of Olivia Cunning and the first in her Sinners on Tour series, Backstage Pass.

Maybe you read about my library quest to discover something I could spend a lazy weekend with. Maya Banks’ Sweet Possession was the winner.

My old college course in satire came in handy when confronted with Rob Reid’s Year Zero. But even if it hadn’t, this still would have been laugh-out-loud funny.

I couldn’t resist more Olivia Cunning. Rock Hard is the follow-up to Backstage Pass.

Joseph Garraty’s Voice was slick enough to warrant a rare five stars from me.

I was at the library, working on what will be Demo Tapes 4, and I decided to treat myself. I was going to go find myself a romance. Hopefully, a good, hot one. AND it was going to be a work of Rock Fiction.

How hard can it be? I figured. All those Rock Fiction books have the same sorts of titles. Rock Me. Backstage Pass. Spotlight. (Nevermind the 90% of books that don’t have cliched titles… gimme a break. I was tired.)

But you know what I noticed?

On almost every exposed spine — and there were many — the book’s title was so far down, I couldn’t read it. Maybe I could see part of it, but that was it. Part. There were author’s names and pictures of half-naked men, but titles?

All hidden under those library stickers.

I gave up on romance and wandered into the general collection, where I encountered some books by Maya Banks. I’ve wanted to read Maya’s books for a long time now — since I met her at RT 08, most likely — and a glance at the back cover copy showed me … I’d found it. A romance, hopefully hot, by an author I have been eager to read. Did I mention it’s Rock Fiction?

Slam dunk.

Oh, and the title? That oh-so-rocker-like Sweet Possession.

I’ll admit it. I’ve been so busy editing that I didn’t have a chance to put together the sort of Rocktober I’d wanted to.

With no further ado:

WHY I WRITE ROCK FICTION

RJ McDonnell

The greatest Christmas present I ever received was an acoustic guitar, given to my sister when I was 9 years old. She was thrilled with it for about an hour. After trying to form chords for the first time and failing miserably, she had no problem letting her little brother make a fool of himself. I realized at that learning to play would be a long and difficult road, especially since my parents couldn’t afford to pay for lessons. But on some level I knew that I had tapped into an inner passion and, regardless of the time and effort involved, I would learn to play that guitar.

I went into that Christmas with my eyes wide open. The previous year, my big present was a Flexible Flyer sled that I immediately walked to our neighbor sleigh riding venue a mile away. It was no big surprise that I was the lone sledder at 8:30 AM on Christmas morning. The big surprise happened when I put my tongue on the sled’s steering bolt when I reached the bottom of the hill on my first run. Yes, it stuck like Crazy Glue, just like in the film A Christmas Story. But instead of flailing my arms and crying, I had to drag a sled that was bigger than me up and down hills for a mile with my tongue twisted sideways. Man-up Flick, it could have been a lot worse.

So, my family was understandably cool about letting me glom onto my sister’s present. I may have traded her an evil sled with a leftover taste bud or two for my first six string.

The following spring I fell head over heels for a Beatles album that I purchased with proceeds from my new lawn mowing business. I started working on the songs with my guitar the minute I got home and didn’t stop at bedtime until my mother took the guitar out of my room and placed it next to my father.

The following morning I tried my hand at acting, as I faked a severe stomach ache in front of my 4th grade class at 9:15 AM. The school nurse drove me home. A couple of days later I overheard my mother say on the telephone, “I wish he would have at least waited until the nurse left the house before playing his album and guitar.”

When I reached high school I discovered an aptitude for English, which served as a nice counterbalance for the black hole known as Algebra. I was moved up into an advanced English class and had no trouble keeping in step with my new classmates. I didn’t know it at the time but it was the beginning of a lifelong journey.

Writing was a skill that carried me through college and grad school. Regardless of my level of preparedness for tests, I could always count on convincing profs that I knew the material with a well-crafted paper or two. It became my go-to skill if my band happened to land a gig the night before a test.

After graduation I tried working at a government job for two years while continuing to play in a band. But I came to realize that my career path and basic intolerance for bullshit were at odds with one another, and was destined to end badly if I didn’t take immediate corrective action. I really wanted a chance to work as a full-time musician but knew it wasn’t going to happen in Northeastern Pennsylvania. So I moved to San Diego, quickly teamed up with a talented lead guitarist, and we formed a band.

But fate can be downright mean at times. Just as my new band was gelling I shattered my left wrist in an accident. At first I thought I’d be back in action in no time – slap a cast on it and wait six weeks. But I broke the navicular bone, which is in the middle of several smaller bones and gets very little of the circulation needed for healing. Six weeks turned into six months, at which point I had bone graft surgery. That was followed by 18 months in casts and braces. Bottom line: I wasn’t able to play guitar for over 20 years.

Writing was my fallback position. I landed a full-time writing job a year after getting out of the brace. My first fiction gig happened when a coworker went to work on a new cable comedy television show with a Saturday Night Live format. My coworker asked if I’d like to submit a script on spec. A total of 34 of my scripts were produced and aired over the show’s two seasons, and I was hooked on fiction.

I’ve been a mystery/crime fan my whole life. My father was a homicide detective who watched every crime drama and movie on television. I transitioned from television to novels in college. I was especially fond of series collections and made sure I tapped into my passion for music when developing my detective’s background as a former club musician. In spite of the injury my passion for rock music never waned. I set up the series so that every one of the novels involved the music industry.

So far, all of the cases have related to rock music. Rock & Roll Homicide is about the murder of a metal frontman. Rock & Roll Rip-Off features a rock studio musician involved with an emo band. The Concert Killer follows a serial killer as he tries to shut down the rock concert industry. And, The Classic Rockers Reunion with Death takes a hard look at life after stardom.

Although my detective, Jason Duffy, played in metal bands until starting his apprenticeship as a private investigator, I’m not locked into writing about rock exclusively. I have two children in their early 20s. My daughter is a blues singer and my son is a drum & bass MC who warmed up a Grammy award winner last year. It’s possible I may wander into their worlds if they offer a guided tour. In the meantime, my working title for #5 is Diamonds, Clubs, and Rock & Roll.

By now, you should all know that my good friend Mary at Bookhounds is one of my top sources for finding new Rock Fiction. I need sources (why aren’t you one of them?); I’m so darn busy with editing and my own fiction and my own marketing and my own, my own, my own…

Yeah. Hard to look beyond oneself when scrabbling to make a living, you know?

But I’m trying. Rock Fiction is my passion, after all, and it deserves as much of my reading time as I can give it.

The author of the moment is Marlene Perez, whose Dead is Series apparently has seven books. Only two of them are on my radar over at the Rock Fiction page. Should the other five be?

Inquiring minds… want to know. Need to know.

If any of you manage to make the inquiries before I do, holler. While you’re at it, remind Ms. Perez (as well as yourself, if you’re an author) that I’d love to host her (you) for a Featured New Book spot here on Mondays.

I went to Amazon the other day to look up some information to go along with a review I had to write for the World’s Toughest Book Critics. Not that I hang out on my own book pages, but Trevor’s Song popped up, along with all those thumbnails for books others viewed when they looked at my buddy Trevor.

One of them was JP Grider’s Unplugged (A Portrait of a Rock Star).

Will this be just another notch in my quest to be the world’s leading expert in Rock Fiction, or will this be the newest book I rave about?

Once I get a copy and actually read it (oy, my TBR. Those Toughest Book Critics are keeping me busy like you would NOT believe), I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, I’ll keep coveting. And being a Toughest Book Critic. And your resident Rock Fiction expert.

(and someone who gives up sleep in the eternal quest to get things done!)

I took a few hours just now when I should have been writing, and re-added all the book reviews that used to be linked to from the Rock Fiction page.

And the recovery from being hacked continues…

If you haven’t been over to the Rock Fiction page yet, what’s keeping you? Go check it out. Read the reviews. If you know of any good reviews I can link to, let me know. If I’m missing any Rock Fiction titles that need to be on the page, let me know. Drop a note to your favorite Rock Fiction author (well, other than me) and ask them to send me their book for review (although I’m way backlogged!).

I’ve got a few more things to do behind the scenes, and then it’ll be off to some of that magic time that, on Twitter, we call #amwriting.

I met DJ Butler not too long ago, when he dropped into my inbox. A mutual friend had suggested we hook up, and let me tell you, I owe that mutual friend! DJ’s pulp series is FUN, FUN, FUN. The fourth installment of his rock band fighting evil came out right around the time King Trevor did, and I was busy with my own release and getting this place back up and running. Poor DJ had to wait all this time for his feature.

That means that once you’ve read this, you need to head over to Amazon and get yourself ALL the titles in the series. Yes, I’m serious. No, doing so won’t break the bank. (Especially because, for you freebie hunters, there are some this week only!)

Read on and see what song inspired this fourth episode, Devil Sent the Rain.

That’s an easy one: “Sympathy for the Devil.” I actually was going to use that title (all the Rock Band Fights Evil books steal their titles from blues, folk or rock songs), until I saw that it had already been done. Many, many times.

I choose “Sympathy for the Devil” for three reasons. First, I think we can all agree it’s a bitching song. And Rock Band Fights Evil is nothing if not bitching.

Second, the song is a devil’s eye retelling of the history of the human race. It’s epic in scope, involving great human wars and famous atrocities (the World Wars, the killing of Christ and the Kennedys) in a tale in which it’s not always easy to tell the cop from the criminal, the sinner from the saint. This is also true of Rock Band Fights Evil, which is a sort of rock ‘n’ roll telling of the apocalypse, revolving around a not-entirely-unsympathetic figure of Azazel, greatest of the Princes of Hell.

Third — and this is why I wanted to use the title for one of the books in the first place — the action in the early books is driven by sympathetic magic. (For anything who is now raising a puzzled eyebrow, the basic idea of sympathetic magic is that two things that are once together are always together, so you can take magical action on a part of something to cause an effect on the whole thing.) Azazel, imprisoned in the wastes of Dudael for centuries under a bath of holy water, lost a fragment of his hoof. The band, a gaggle of variously-damned men, grab the hoof fragment in book one and race towards Hell against the powers that want to snatch the hoof from them, because they want to use it in an act of sympathetic magic — think voodoo doll principles — to force Azazel to undamn them.

Hey, look, I think I’ve just given you my book blurb, too. Ha! Rock on!

(Sadly, it looks like the Stones have yanked all the video of this off the Internet. Shoot.)

[Note from Susan: I found one! Click that link above!]

Rock Band #1 is Hellhound on My Trail

Rock Band #2 is Snake Handlin’ Man

Rock Band #3 is Crow Jane

Rock Band #4 is Devil Sent the Rain

Blog

Rock Band Website

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

Goodreads

One final note: Be sure if you do nothing else, you check out the cover art for these books. They’re every bit as awesome and entertaining as the books themselves and I HATE that covers this slick have to be reduced to greyscale!

Since the hack caused my Rocks ‘n Reads blog to be lost, I’ve come up with a new way to post my book reviews. You can access them from the Rock Fiction page — once I’ve got them all up.

Down the road, one of my goals is to come up with really cool templates for each page. Yes, each review will have its own sidebars!

(Buy my books and hire me to edit yours so I can afford this project, okay??? Yes, I’m eyeing Kickstarter, too.)

Since there won’t be an RSS feed associated with the new reviews, I’ll take this space to notify you of the reviews I post.

Which means I’ve got a review to tell you about! It’s for Rachel K. Burke’s Sound Bites, a really cute beach read that is totally worth your time. Once you read my review, use this link (my Smashwords affiliate link) to pick up your own copy. You won’t be disappointed!

So you’ve been meaning to pick up the first two Demo Tapes books for your Kindle. But… well, other books have intruded on your search, and it was hard to resist.

I know. I have similar problems. I’m not here to fault you.

Instead, I’m here to tell you that Amazon’s decided to drop the price on Demo Tapes (Year 1) and Demo Tapes (Year 2) to 99c. Each.

Now’s the time. If you have friends who love Rock Fiction, if you have friends who used to watch music videos on MTV, if you have friends who still lust for men with long hair… why not gift ’em a book or two?

Really, guys. It doesn’t get any better than this. And with King Trevor set to be released on April 12, there’s no better time to join the Trevolution.

Is there?

Didn’t think so.

WAIT.

Are you a print lover???

Demo Tapes (Year 1), Demo Tapes (Year 2), AND Demo Tapes (Year 3) are STILL part of Amazon’s 4-for-3 promo. Maybe you’ve seen me Tweet about it. Maybe not.

At any rate, here’s the deal. You can buy all three Demo Tapes short story anthologies and spend MORE time with Trevor, Mitchell, and the gang. $29.97 for all three. AND then you can surf around and find something for FREE. (Sorry, but Trevor’s Song isn’t part of the promo. Bummer, huh?)

Like I said: King Trevor. April 12, 2012.

Join the Trevolution NOW.

(Demo Tapes — Year 1 in print)
(Demo Tapes — Year 2 in print)
(Demo Tapes — Year 3 in print)