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I saw Billy Joel in concert

Last Thursday night, my life changed.

Look, I knew this was going to be a big deal for me. Hence the countdown I did all week here on the blog. I just didn’t realize how big it would be. So I’m going to try to tell you all about it. I’m just not sure I’ll accurately convey how incredible it was.

We arrived at Wrigley Field in time to buy a forty dollar t-shirt (You’re killing me, Mr. Joel. You’re killing me) and find our very pinchy, small seats (You’re killing me, Wrigley Field. You’re killing me). It was such a weird thing, going to this concert, because we took the red line to get there, and everyone on the train seemed to be going to the same place. Every time we’d stop, the already crammed train would fill with just one more person in a Billy Joel shirt. At Addison, we all flowed off the train and down into the closed-off street, where thousands of people in their fifties and sixties struggled to figure out how to take a selfie in front of the marquee. It was like night of the living Baby Boomers down there, but as Mr. Jen points out, we were kind of on their turf, showing up at a Billy Joel concert and all.

The opening act was Gavin DeGraw, who I had heard of before, but I’m not very familiar with. Who’s the old person, now? That’s right, it’s me.

Despite buying our tickets within literally two minutes of them going on sale, our seats were not on the field, and weren’t the most advantageous angle. Or so it might seem…

While we were not head-on for seeing the band on stage, we could see the giant monitors just fine, and holy cow, look at that, we can see into the “backstage” area. Which meant that when Billy Joel rode out to the stage on the back of a little golf cart (my mind still can’t fully get around the idea that I not only saw Billy Joel in concert, but I saw Billy Joel riding on the back of a golf cart), we could see him, when most people on the ground either couldn’t or just didn’t notice he was there.

But I noticed, dear reader.

As a prelude to Mr. Joel and the band coming on stage, the stadium was filled with the sweeping orchestral sounds of an extract from Randy Newman’s The Natural theme, which I thought was a great nod to the park. I don’t know if that’s something he does every time he plays there, or if it was just for that night, since he was breaking the record for being the artist who’s performed there the most. Either way, as the music faded, the lights went down, and…

Well, from here, I’ll do my best to go from song to song in the setlist and just tell you what happened:

Big Shot

As soon as the lights went down, I started screaming. The guy in front of me started crying. But I was crying, too, so it was okay. I sat through the song hugging myself and wiping away the copious tears that were riding a wave of unbridled joy and excitement straight out of my face. This continued right into:

My Life

at which point I realized that I could text Bronwyn Green the setlist, and she could remember anything that happened for me, because I was so high on endorphins that I would remember NOTHING.

After “My Life,” Mr. Joel addressed the audience by playing a little bit of “My Kind of Town,” before abandoning it and sheepishly telling us that he didn’t actually know all the words. I believe it was at this point that he mentioned that he was setting the Wrigley Field record. Then he gave us the choice of which song he would play next, offering the option of “Summer, Highland Falls,” (which I cheered for, and mightily,)  and “This Is The Time” (which actually won).

This Is The Time

As must as I love “Summer, Highland Falls,” it was probably better that I didn’t get the chance to cry harder. People were already looking at me funny. This was also the point in the concert where I realized that nobody gave a damn that everyone else was singing along, so I did, too.

The Entertainer

I lost my beans. I. Lost. Them. See, this is the song that fully cemented my idolization of Billy Joel as a religious figure and not just a musician. You can read that story, and how “The Entertainer” figures into it, here. This was such an amazing moment for me. I keep using words like “amazing” and “awesome” and none of them are sufficient to describe the moment.

At this point, Mr. Joel once again put it to the audience to decide the next song. The choices he gave, “No Man’s Land” and “All For Leyna” were not met with a hugely enthusiastic response, to which he replied, “Neither of them sound like a real barn burner.” But we went with…

All For Leyna

…which I screamed my head off for. I don’t know that I ever considered I would have the possibility to hear that one live.

After the song, he told a story about the times he opened for various different bands in Chicago, from The Beach Boys (which went horribly) to Hall and Oates (he played and sang the chorus of “Rich Girl” to illustrate that one), and even mentioned playing with “the other guy.” In case we didn’t know who “the other guy” was, Mr. Joel played and sang a few lines from “Your Song” by Elton John, ending on “I don’t have much money/but boy if I did,” and cutting short to say, “Bullshit, you don’t have much money. You got lots of money!” then quickly saying that it was a joke, they’re good friends, etc.

Not sure if I buy that.

Then he introduced the next song, saying it was “from an album called Stormfront,” and I was like…wait…

wait…

Because Bronwyn Green had said she hoped he would play…

The Downeaster “Alexa”

I wished and wished that Bronwyn could be there with me. Then I remembered how phones worked. I dialed her number, waited to make sure it picked up, then shouted, “I hope you can hear this!” into the mic before holding my phone up so she could hear the song.

He then gave us another choice of songs, between “New York State of Mind” and “For The Longest Time” And overwhelmingly, the stadium roared for

For The Longest Time

In order to perform it, he explained that he had to warm up, which he did by singing a little “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” with his band. Then they launched into the song, and I caught Mr. Jen actually singing along.

After that, Mr. Joel did my absolute favorite of all his songs,

Allentown

immediately followed by

Goodnight, Saigon

I’d never realized before how well these songs go together, how much they’re meant to be together. They’re both on The Nylon Curtain, but they’re separated by other songs. Right next to each other, they’re like one piece of American disenchantment. As per usual, Mr. Joel had veterans and service members on stage with him to sing the song’s moving “we said we’d all go down together” hook, and the audience stood as though we were all hearing the national anthem. After the song, Mr. Joel shook the hands of the men and women on stage with him, to cheers and a chant of “U.S.A! U.S.A.!” from the guys behind us.

The Ballad Of Billy The Kid

Mr. Joel introduced this one as something he wrote out of a desire to write the film score for a western. He explained that as a New Yorker, West Virginia sounds like it should be a part of the Old West. After he played it, he pointed out the myriad historical inaccuracies he made in writing the lyrics, including the fact that Billy The Kid never made it to Utah or Oklahoma, that the Rio Grande actually flows east to west, and Billy The Kid wasn’t hung. Then Mr. Joel revised, “Well, we don’t know if he was hung,” followed by a rimshot from his drummer.

He gave us a choice for the next song, but for the of me I can’t remember what the other choice was. But what got picked was

Just The Way You Are

because it’s the most popular radio song, I assume. But the song bums me out in a big way, after reading Fred Schruer’s biography of Billy Joel. “Just The Way You Are” was written as a birthday present to Mr. Joel’s first wife, Elizabeth, and after he played it for her for the first time she asked him if her present was the publishing rights. Seriously, how sad is that? After he finished playing the song for us, he said, “We got divorced,” then after a beat added, “It was fun while it lasted.”

Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)

How could I hear this song and not think of my BFF Jill? Every time I see a kayak, the first thing I think of is “kayak-ack-ack-ack-ack” because of the day we annoyed Mr. Jen by adding superfluous “acks” to ever “ack” word we could think of.

The Stranger

This was another song I wouldn’t have guess I would have heard. He followed it with

Keeping The Faith

Let me tell you about the importance of this song, dear reader. I take so much inspiration from this song specifically from the lines “You can get just so much of a good thing/you can linger too long in your dreams/say goodbye to the oldies but goodies/’cause the good old days weren’t always good/tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems”. Here’s a video of part of the song, in which you can briefly hear me singing along before I stop because I’m crying. It’s okay though, because the people around me were singing it and they picked up the slack.

Sometimes A Fantasy

I was so excited when he introduced this one by saying he was going to play a song that was banned from the radio. I looked at Mr. Jen while I was screaming and clapping my hands, and he goes, “Jen. I have no idea what that means.”

Don’t Ask Me Why

One of the things I absolutely loved about this concert was how great Mr. Joel’s voice sounded. Everyone has been saying for years that he was losing his voice, he doesn’t sound as good anymore, but at this concert? It could have been taken right off the record. I heard he’s taking allergy shots now, and apparently they’re working because this song, especially, sounded fantastic. So did

She’s Always A Woman To Me

and he complimented us all for staying on key when the stadium inevitably erupted into sing-a-long on the line “Oh she takes care of herself.”

We Didn’t Start The Fire

The second Mr. Joel got up from the piano and took his guitar from a roadie, I knew what he was going to play. Because it’s like, the only song you ever see him play on guitar. And while it’s not my favorite of all his songs, I was really excited to see him play guitar.

The River Of Dreams

I’ve written about this song before. It is, if not the backbone of Joelism, an important vertebrae in the neck. I’ve written my analysis of the song with regard to my beliefs in the afterlife. So naturally, I had to get a video of this song.

(One of my favorite things about this video is that you can clearly hear the woman behind me, who got progressively more drunk as the evening went on, loudly proclaiming, “I LOVE THAT SONG!” at one point. Somewhere along the fifth visit from the beer selling guy, she started just randomly shouting that over and over and it cracked me up every time.)

Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

I really wish I would have recorded this one. Everyone just partied like crazy to it. People were standing up, dancing, and of course singing along. “Oh oh. Oh oh. Oh oh oh oh oh oh.”

Piano Man

This was, of course, his closer. That is, before the super long and bombastic four song encore he did.

There is nothing I can say that will describe the feeling of standing in that stadium, singing along to this song, with Mr. Billy Joel himself right there, singing and playing it for us. I’m glad I got a video of it, but even the video doesn’t capture the way it felt in the moment. I’ve never felt that way singing a hymn in church. I’ve never felt that way at another concert, with another artist. Everyone was united in this amazing song that should feel old (and Mr. Joel himself has said that it’s starting to feel old to him), but is like some strange cosmic glue that held all of us together, thousands of us, all swaying along and living the story of the song together.

Uptown Girl

After Mr. Joel left the stage to wild applause, walking the length of the stage and waving, the lights went out, the crowd went wild, and Mr. Joel and band returned. And he was like, “Did anybody see Trainwreck?” and I was like, “NO!” because I’m too cheap to go to the movies. Apparently at the end of Trainwreck there’s a dance sequence to “Uptown Girl,” and during the song Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence came out and danced on the piano.

So I texted Bronwyn:

By the way, Jennifer Lawrence is god damn adorable. After they came down from the stage, we could see her in the backstage area, dancing and skipping around and twirling and throwing her arms up in the air to the music.

It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me

Two things:  1) he still throws around the mic stand and dances around the stage to this. 2) it was freaking amazing because they projected images of him performing this song in the music video on the big screen while he was throwing around the mic stand and dancing.

You May Be Right

This is one of my theme songs, and I often think of it as a companion to “My Life.” I’m so happy I got to hear both of them, as sort-of book ends to the concert.

Only The Good Die Young

He closed the show with this ode to how easy it is to get Catholic girls into bed. As a former Catholic school girl, I have to say this song will always have a special place in my heart, and since it’s a fan favorite, everyone really went to town dancing and singing and screaming. It was the perfect end to the roller coaster of emotions that was the entire experience.

Everything about this night was incredible. When the lights came up and I was wiping tears from my face, the guy sitting next to us looked to me and said, “Was it your first time seeing him? It was my first time!” and fist bumped me. And I was so excited to see the band members as well, especially Mark Rivera and Crystal Taliefero (who I just found out is in her early fifties and my mind is blown to smithereens). Apparently knowing their names and being excited for them makes me “a dork,” but they’re both amazing and more than hold their own on stage with Mr. Joel.

I consider myself lucky and cosmically honored to have been there. And honestly, I still can’t believe I got to experience all of it.

DOUBLE STEVE BONUS MONDAY

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S02E19: “I Only Have Eyes For You”

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone has still not learned her lesson about buying Cheez-Its to keep in her office. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it. 

CW: RAPE, SUICIDE

If I were to rank all the Buffy episodes in order of greatness (maybe I’ll do that at the end of the recaps in twenty-six years), “I Only Have Eyes For You” would easily make the top ten. It has so much, dear reader. It has so much.

Our story opens at The Bronze, where the real life band Splendid is playing. Something casual fans of the show might not have realized is that all of the bands (including Oz’s band) are actual music groups in real life. Oz’s band, by the way, wasn’t Dingos Ate My Baby, but T.H.C.. I can see why that might not have flown on a show aimed at teens.

Anyway, we’re at The Bronze, and Buffy is on the catwalk, looking down at the crowd forlornly. A guy approaches Buffy and tries to get her to remember him from Algebra class the year before. Buffy pretends to remember him, and he tries to get her to ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept (I’m pretty sure it’s a predominately American thing), Sadie Hawkins comes from the comic strip Lil’ Abner. Sadie Hawkins day is when all the single men of the town of Dog Patch have to run from the single women, and if the single women catch them and manage to pull them across the finish line, they have to get married.

Lil’ Abner is a super weird comic franchise, but it’s got a kick ass musical.

Sadie Hawkins dances became popular because of this, and the whole point is that women have to ask the men to the dance, and in some cases, pay for the whole date. Which I guess was revolutionary and kooky in the mid-20th century, and was kind of a mild female empowerment thing. We still have them, which is weird. I asked lots of boys on dates in high school, because they were usually too chicken shit to ask the girls.

On the other hand, I did bully my husband into dating me, so I might be the odd duck out.

So, Buffy tells the guy that it’s not personal, she’s just never going to date anyone ever again. Like you decide to do when you’re a teenager going through your first heartbreak. Downstairs, Willow tells Buffy that she’s been doing too much patrolling, rather than hanging out. Willow thinks Buffy should go out and start dating again.

Willow: “You’re thinking too much. Maybe you need to be impulsive.”

Buffy: “Impulsive? Do you remember my ex-boyfriend the vampire? I slept with him, he lost his soul, now my boyfriend is gone forever and the demon that wears his face is killing my friends. The next impulsive decision I make will involve my choice of dentures.”

Willow reminds Buffy that despite what happened with Angel, love can “be nice.”

Which leads us to cut to Sunnydale high, where a guy and his girlfriend are arguing:

Guy: “Come back here! We’re not finished! You don’t care anymore, is that it?”

Girl: “No, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter what I feel!”

Guy: “Then tell me you don’t love me. Say it!”

Girl: “Will that help? Is that what you need to hear? I don’t. I don’t, now let me go!”

Guy: “No. A person doesn’t just wake up one day and stop loving somebody.”

He pulls a gun on the girl and warns:

Guy: “Love is forever.”

Then we fade to the opening credits, and come back to the guy brandishing the gun.

Guy: “I’m not afraid to use it. I swear. If I can’t be with you–”

Girl: “Oh my god!”

Guy: “Don’t walk away from me, bitch!”

Luckily, Buffy is patrolling the school halls. She stops the guy from shooting the girl, and a janitor comes running to help.

Let’s talk, for just a second, about the brave janitors of Sunnydale high. That has to be one of the most dangerous jobs on this show, and they keep coming in night after night, scraping gum off tables and sweeping papers and debris down the halls with those long, flat brooms, just a couple floors above the Hellmouth. Let’s have a round of applause for these unsung heroes of Sunnydale.

Once Buffy has the guy subdued, he’s all sorts of confused. So is his girlfriend. They can’t explain what happened; they weren’t even arguing before reaching this point. Buffy asks why he had a gun, and the janitor points out that there is no gun. It’s just vanished.

The next morning, Buffy is in Principal Snyder’s office. Snyder is convinced that whatever happened with the couple the night before was Buffy’s fault, and he’s going to find a way to make it so. When I first watched this show, I thought Snyder was unreasonably obsessed with framing Buffy for stuff that happened, but now that I’ve seen the whole series, it makes sense. I mean, whenever something weird happens, Buffy is involved. But so is Giles, who’s an employee who I assume doesn’t have tenure, because he hasn’t worked at the school that long. Why not just cut Giles loose and hope the problem moves off campus? We’ll talk about that in just a little bit here.

Snyder is called away when a vegan student chains himself to the snack machine, but he tells Buffy to stay in his office. As soon as he’s gone, a book slides itself off a shelf:

I like this because it looks like Marti Noxon wrote the 1955 Sunnydale yearbook.

Since Buffy only heard it fall, she picks it up and sticks it back on the shelf like it’s no big deal.

In computer class, Willow is still, inexplicably, teaching Ms. Calendar’s class. Giles comes to the door and looks super proud of her. She tells him that Ms. Calendar had all her lessons already planned out, as well as files about Paganism. Willow also found a necklace with a rose quartz crystal on it. She gives it to Giles because it has healing properties, and she thinks Jenny would have wanted him to have it.

Meanwhile, Buffy is in another class, bored out of her skull. She nods off and when she wakes up, she’s still in her classroom, but there’s something different about it. Like, the fact that everyone is wearing poodle skirts and there’s a sign for a fallout shelter near the door, for example. Also, nobody seems to notice her sitting there, especially not the pretty young teacher and her student who discuss Hemingway and hold hands:

They’re interrupted by an opening door, and Buffy is snapped back to the present day, where her teacher is writing something completely different on the board than what he’d probably intended:

This is good news for James, but bad news for Buffy and Angel. When the possession wears off, they’re enemies again. Just as Buffy thinks Angel might be back, he pushes her away in disgust.

Back at the library, Willow, Cordelia, and Xander report that all the bugs and snakes are gone. Buffy tells Giles that she thinks James picked her because he could identify with her more.

Buffy: “I still… A part of me just doesn’t understand why she would forgive him.”

Giles: “Does it matter?”

Buffy: “No. I guess not.”

And Giles smiles sadly because Buffy finally understands, and he must understand, too. See, here’s a part of this episode I’ve always overlooked, because I was caught up in the Buffy/Angel parallels. Giles felt Jenny had unfinished business. Hours before she died, they made plans to rekindle their relationship, though they had never outright forgiven each other. Giles feels he should have forgiven Jenny sooner, but it’s too late now. In a way, he was kind of reverse-haunting Jenny.

At Maison du Vampire, Angel is bathing in the courtyard fountain while Spike looks gleefully on:

Spike: “You might want to let up. They say when you’ve drawn blood, you’ve exfoliated.”

Angel doesn’t find it funny. He feels violated by the spirit of Ms. Newman, which is fair enough. He announces his intention to go out and do some really depraved killing, but when Dru invites Spike along, Angel nixes the idea, making more remarks about Spike being in a wheelchair and basically useless. Again, if you can think of other times in the series that ableism features so heavily, let me know in the comments and we can add it to the list. Anyway, they leave Spike behind to give us one of the most wonderful “Oh, shit,” moments of the series. He stands up, punches the air, and kicks the wheelchair he doesn’t need, because he’s only been pretending that he’s not fully healed.

In summation, what the fuck, this episode is amazing.

HAPPY BILLY JOEL DAY! JOEL BLESS US, EVERY ONE!

The Big Damn Billy Joel Concert Countdown: 1 Day

New Chapter of THE AFFLICTED is now on Wattpad

Keeping up with my free Wattpad horror serial, The Afflicted? Chapter eighteen is available for your reading pleasure. Or displeasure. Or ambivalence, really. It’s free, so I got nothing to lose.

The Big Damn Billy Joel Concert Countdown: 2 Days

GUEST POST: Author Cecelia London

Hey everybody! Occasionally, I’ll let another author jump in and take over the blog, and today it’s Cecilia London, one of my very favorite Twitter people! She’s here to talk about her books, Dissident and Conscience, why she feels they would appeal to Trout Nation (she’s not wrong), a hot guy to google, and how poisoned turkey influences her writing process.

So now I’m going to turn it over to Cecelia!

 

First off, thanks to Jenny for having me. I’m hoping that maybe some of you have heard my name before…if not, then read on, because I’ve got some hot sex, angsty drama, not-so-unrealistic dystopias, witty dialogue, well-developed side characters, a sexy but sensitive alpha hero, and a smartass heroine to share with you.

Where should I start? I’m writing a six book series, and it has a little bit of everything. Yes, I know that makes some people want to throw things. But rest assured, most of the books are well on the way to completion and just need some polishing and editing. I won’t leave any readers hanging, I promise. The series was initially a trilogy but as I kept writing the plot kept getting bigger. I realized it could not be contained in just three books. So now you’re stuck with six! But since the characters are pretty damn likable, it’s not a problem.

The first book in the series, Dissident, is currently free. It’s been described by one reviewer as “political dystopian intellectual smut,” but it’s primarily contemporary romance. However, I can almost guarantee that it’s unlike any romance novel you’ve read before. I wouldn’t make that kind of statement if reviewers hadn’t told me that, because otherwise I think it sounds a little pretentious. But it’s definitely outside the box. Which has made it a bit difficult to market, but that’s why I’m here…to find my people!

Let’s focus on why it’s different. We’ve got a silver fox hero in his early fifties and a passionate heroine in her early forties. They’re a bit younger when we first meet them in flashbacks, but there’s no need to split hairs. Let’s get a yay for older characters. Amirite?

Jack…our hero. The millionaire silver fox and reforming playboy. That may seem like a rehashed trope or overdone concept but I assure you, there is much more to him than meets the eye. And our heroine Caroline can certainly hold her own. Strong, smart, and funny, she’s hardly a pushover. Oh, and she’s a feminist too, because why not? I tossed all my idealistic liberalism into her, since it seemed only fair.

And if you’re looking for a little visual inspiration, do a Google search for Laurence Nicotra. He’s the male model who is now my perfect Jack. Go ahead. I’ll wait. I’ll understand if it takes you a while. He distracts me a lot.

We’ve also got a unique backdrop for our story. In the Prologue, Jack and Caroline are running through the forest, presumably to get away from government agents who want to take them into custody. They have information on a corrupt, totalitarian regime in Washington and are determined to get it to safety. Caroline, seriously injured, begs Jack to go on without her…and he does.

When Chapter One begins, Caroline is now a prisoner being held at a VA hospital. Still recovering from her injuries, she is in a medically induced coma. Her relationship with Jack is explained through flashbacks, which make up the bulk of the first book.

In the first flashback, it is revealed that Caroline is a Democratic member of Congress who made some none too charitable remarks about Jack (a newly elected Republican) during the past campaign. She tries to make amends and is initially rebuffed but once Jack decides to stop acting like a prick, a friendship and more is born.

But all is not well in Caroline’s past. Their budding romantic relationship develops at a beautiful slow burn against a political backdrop, but they still have obstacles to overcome. Thus, Dissident ends on what’s been called a dirty little cliffy….which brings us to the second book in the series.

Conscience, releasing August 17,is a much darker book than Dissident. It’s got more action, more angst, more brutality, and in the words of one advance reviewer, is “gritty, suspenseful, and hot as fuck.”

Caroline is still In Great Peril, and uses her memories to try to escape an increasingly dangerous present. The series gets more brutal, but it also takes a turn for the erotic. This second book is designed to rip your heart in two, as you’re given interludes and snippets of Caroline’s past to help counter the backbreaking bleakness of her present. And of course I end it on another cliffy because I’m still a Very Mean Author Who Does Bad Things To Her Readers.

Dissident and Conscience are told in a non-linear fashion, with the present and past designed to meet at the end of the second book to allow the reader to discover just how Jack and Caroline ended up in that forest. The reader learns more about her relationship with Jack, about her children, about the friends who hold her heart. More information is revealed about how the United States turned into a repressive regime. The evolution of Caroline from politician to leader of a growing rebellion takes place over the course of the books. Though readers are treated to more flashbacks in future installments, they are sporadic and random (and frankly, they were really just an excuse to add more hot sex scenes).

I touch upon several themes in the series, but ultimately it’s an epic romance between the two main characters. Arguably they have bigger obstacles to overcome than the average couple, but I wanted to create a unique world in which they could live. They’ve been in my mind for years but it wasn’t until I ate some bad BBQ and suffered some mild food poisoning that I came up with the idea for the series. Thankfully I haven’t needed foodborne illness to come up with ideas for other books, but if you’ve got a mean case of writer’s block, I recommend eating some tainted turkey.

There are a ton of dystopian books out there. I’ve read many of them, both YA and adult, since I love speculative fiction almost as much as I love romance. I re-read The Handmaid’s Tale every year just to help me keep perspective, even though it seems to get a little more realistic every time I pick it up. (Note to Margaret Atwood: Stop writing metafiction!)

Many dystopian books give little to no explanation of how societies arrived at such a dark place. Maybe there was a war, or a famine, or something else, but most of them take place years after the critical event that changed their society. I wanted to write a series about how a perceived dystopia came to be, and how it might be stopped before things went too far.

My books aren’t exactly heavy on the details, but that’s by design. I give away bits and pieces of how the regime came into power, but I do not dwell on it. The United States has a political system brilliantly designed to stand the test of time. But its beauty is also its weakness. What would it take to send it all crashing down, particularly in an age of apathy and disconnect? If nothing else, I hope I’ve given people something to think about, and that these characters and this plotline have given them a reason to question their own perception of things.

Jack and Caroline have tremendous privilege. They have wealth, power, and education, and are relatively well-regarded by the public. Facing increasing political and economic pressure, they could have cut ties. Jumped ship. Skipped town and ridden off into the sunset with their family and friends. But they didn’t. What would it take for someone who had that kind of advantage to be willing to give it up for the greater good, to sacrifice for others, when it would be so easy to save your own skin? And how do you deal with the aftermath of your sacrifice? These issues come into play in future installments in the series, as it evolves from one with political overtones into a story arc that focuses on relationships, love, and ultimately, triumph.

Even though I touch upon some complicated issues, the books are not meant to be overly political. They’re not designed to lecture or sway. They’re not literary fiction. They have depth but they’re not heavy. They’re simply there to tell a damn good love story. Each book may leave readers with more questions than answers, but that’s part of the appeal of the series. You have to pay attention to the little things that might become more significant later. And even if the answers are elusive, you’ll still get a captivating romance and a happily ever after.

Above all, the overriding message is one of love and passion, of hope and faith, and of desire and determination. And I hope readers will enjoy the ride.

So check them out, won’t ya? Since Dissident is free, you have nothing to lose. Links to the books are below. Thanks for having me, Trout Nation!

 

DISSIDENT*

Amazon • Amazon UK • Amazon Canada

Barnes & Noble • iBooks • Smashwords • Kobo

Dissident on GoodReads

CONSCIENCE

Amazon.com • Amazon UK • Amazon Canada

Barnes & Noble • Kobo • iBooks • Smashwords

 Conscience on GoodReads

*Free e-book

 

Catch up with me on social media!

Twitter: @authorclondon

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorcecilialondon

 

 

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