Jill Edmondson is the Toronto writer of the Sasha Jackson Mysteries. She recently invited me to do a guest post on her blog, and I took the opportunity to share the inspiration for my book series with her readers. You can read the post here.
Share Article → Cinta Garcia, the author of the children’s book The Funny Adventures of Little Nani, kindly invited me to do a guest post on her author blog. She gave me free rein on my choice of topic, and I decided to write a piece called Fact Meets Fiction. You can read the post here.
Share Article → Guest Posts It is with great pleasure that I can announce that Behind Blue Eyes: Let My Love Open the Door is now available on the Kindle store. We will be updating our website soon with details on the third book in the Behind Blue Eyes series.
Share Article → Behind Blue Eyes: Love Ain’t for Keeping is now delivering correctly on the Amazon Kindle store. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
One of our readers let us know that the Amazon Kindle store is currently delivering the wrong content. Instead of sending the text for Behind Blue Eyes: Love Ain’t for Keeping (which starts in 1980). it is sending the text for Behind Blue Eyes: Let My Love Open the Door (which starts in 1986). We have contacted our distributor to let them know of this discrepancy to be fixed immediately, but we do not know how long it will be before this is properly fixed.
If you have purchased Behind Blue Eyes: Love Ain’t for Keeping from the Kindle store from April 1st to May 1st and the book starts with 1986, please send us a copy of your Kindle store receipt to publishing@behindblueeyes.ca and we will send you a personalized copy of Behind Blue Eyes: Love Ain’t for Keeping.
Share Article → Kindle | in Administrivia That I am a fan of what is commonly referred to as Classic Rock is of no surprise to the people who know me. I am a child of the 70s, and I came of age in what many consider one of the richest periods in rock music. As a teenager, I loved prog rock, glam rock, hard rock, and was often tethered to the aisles of the downtown location of Sam the Record Man, looking for new treasure. That said, I am finding myself, in 2013, checking out many classic-era bands that I have never connected with live despite their presence in my vinyl collection.
Heart is one of those bands. I have always been a great admirer of the Wilson sisters, Ann for her incredible vocal range and ability to deliver a melody with passion and strength, and Nancy for showing the world that one can be graceful and powerful at the same time. The two sisters were early inspirations for me, and despite making my fictional Sarah Nolan a redhead, she was infused with the spirit of Ann Wilson (and Stevie Nicks) long before she ever hit the page.
Last Thursday night, I finally went to see Heart, at the venerable and acoustically perfect Massey Hall in Toronto. The venue is an architectural beauty, though the seats themselves are not always comfortable and some sections have structural pillars and posts blocking a perfect view. No matter—it was all about the sound for me, and how Heart would hold up after more than 30 years. They not only held up, but they blew me away. I have to admit that I am no great fan of their more successful songs, which are always the ones getting radio airplay: Barracuda, Heartless, Magic Man, Crazy on You, Kick It Out, these are the titles that people know best and the ones that do it the least for me. I suppose it is the over-exposure on classic rock radio, but I tend to feel the same way about The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again, which is akin to blasphemy in Who circles. The gems of the night for me were the beautiful calypso rendition of Dreamboat Annie, and the Asian-flavoured arrangement of my favourite song, Dog and Butterfly. Those two numbers alone were worth the price of the ticket.
But the evening was about much more to me. It was about watching two supremely confident and talented older women still kicking out with determination and passion, mastering their instruments and showing their fans how tight and musically adept they still are, and how women are just as able in a rock world that still largely belongs to men. It was about the beauty of the lyrics, the reflection of the journey taken together as sisters, which is something I get on such a personal level. At the end of the show, they came out with opening act Simon Townshend to do their second encore, after a masterful version of Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog. Hearing ‘Love Reign o’er Me’ as their final song of the night was a beautiful thing, because you could not only sense that deep bond between the sisters in every note, but it was a touching way to include their support act and come full circle after his amazing performance to start the evening.