Blog Tour: SCENES FROM A SONG by Susan Sloate
SCENES FROM A SONG
Susan Sloate
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GENRE: Drama
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BLURB:
OnHalloween Eve, 1961, in his dingy Bronx walkup apartment, seventeen-year-oldJimmy Welton hears the opening notes of a song in his head. Jimmy’s stillmourning his firefighter father, who taught him to play the guitar but recentlydied in a house fire, leaving his family destitute. Jimmy takes this song,about all he misses from his life now, to the New York amusement park where heworks after school. There, he meets Mark Morgan, a rebellious teen with his ownband, who eventually invites Jimmy to join them. And the rest is rock'n rollhistory...
Their band, TheGooseBumps, become a worldwide phenomenon, and the songs they write and singtogether become the backbone of rock musical history. And the song Jimmy firstheard on Halloween, "Wrapped in Gauze", becomes the song that notonly comforts him in that terrible time but also comforts others: Victoria,recently divorced and dealing with an out-of-nowhere family tragedy; Carolyn,whose final flippant words to someone in pain can't be taken back; and Jack,battling back from unimaginable loss with the help of his cheeky therapist anda song he thinks he hates.
SCENES FROM A SONG isthe story of a song that makes us smile, that breaks our hearts, that stayswith us forever, and the very special band that started it all.
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ExcerptTwo:
Jimmy hesitated for a moment, then took a good slug and feltit burn down into his stomach. Only then would he trust him-self to strum thefirst chords of “Bawk Bawk”. He’d written it in a sardonic mood one day, whenhe heard Debby playing “The Twist” on her record player and wanted to make funof it. It had never occurred to him he’d end up playing it for a bunch of guysin a seedy bar after midnight.
Jimmy took a deep breath and launched into the song,speaking as well as singing it. After he’d written it, he’d realized he couldeven dance it a little, too, and he made gestures as well:
Imitating a chicken, clicking his heels together, clappinghis hands. His father had told him he was a natural showman, so he gave it hisall.
When he began to ham it up in the dance part, the boysbe-gan to laugh, and they laughed right through to the end. Jimmy finished withthe high whistle he’d learned the previous summer, and a final click of hisheels before bowing to them.
Mark, Kellen and Hammy applauded enthusiastically, and Mick,who’d come back to see if they wanted another round, said to him, “Terrific,fella. Funniest thing I’ve seen since ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’. You a comic?”
“Are you kidding? He’s a musician!” Mark roared. “A greatmusician! And ‘Bawk Bawk’s a number-one hit if ever I heard one!”
He jumped onto the floor and imitated Jimmy, clicking hisheels together, arms flailing like a chicken, and making the ‘bawk bawk’ sound.In a minute, Hammy and Kellen were following him.
“Play it again, Jimmy!” Mark shouted. “So we can dance itthis time!”
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Guest post: What do you hope readers will get out of yourbook?
SCENES FROM A SONG is a novel about the unquenchable powerof music in our lives, and what I hope is that readers will read it, thinkabout the band and the people who hear that song later and then think aboutsongs in their OWN lives that continue to matter to them.
Those songs can be as innocuous as something that makes youremember a particular time in your life (happily or unhappily), or somethingthat still has such emotional resonance that every time you hear it, it hitsyou in the gut. Those songs evoke deep feelings—and our ability to feel is whatmakes us human, after all.
For me, a good example is the Pretenders song “Back on theChain Gang”. It had just come out and I’d been hearing it on the radio for afew weeks when I bought the single (a 45 rpm record—remember those, kids?) AndI was at the start of a new romance when I came home one day and took abath—and I played that song, over and over, while I was in the bath andthinking about my romance.
To this day, every time I hear it, it makes me smile. Theromance didn’t end well, but at that moment I was as happy as I could feel, sothe song still brings me to a place of happiness. I’ve never heard it sincethat time without remembering that bath and how happy I was then. And all theseyears later, it still carries that ‘happy’ charge for me.
So I’m hoping readers will respond to the song and what itmeans, not just to the band but also to the people who hear it at difficulttimes in their lives. Because songs mean different things to different people,and whether it becomes a happy or sad memory is entirely up to you.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
SUSAN SLOATE isthe author or co-author of more than 25 published books. This includes 3editions of Forward to Camelot, a time-travel thriller about the JFKassassination that became a #6 Amazon bestseller, was honored in 3 literarycompetitions and was optioned by a Hollywood company for film production. Shealso wrote the autobiographical Broadway novel Stealing Fire, which became a #2Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release, and Realizing You (with Ron Doades), forwhich she invented a new genre: the self-help novel.
Susan has alsowritten young-adult fiction and non-fiction, including the children’s biographyRay Charles: Find Another Way, which won the silver medal in the 2007Children’s Moonbeam Awards. Mysteries Unwrapped: The Secrets of Alcatraz led toher 2009 appearance on the TV series MysteryQuest for The History Channel. Shehas also been a sportswriter and a screenwriter, edited the popular Kyle &Corey young-adult book series, man-aged two political campaigns and founded anauthor’s festival to promote student literacy in her hometown outsideCharleston, SC. She has appeared in multiple volumes of WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA,WHO’S WHO IN ENTERTAINMENT and WHO’S WHO AMONG AMERICAN WOMEN.
Visit heronline at https://susansloate.com.
Social Media:
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Website:www.susansloate.com
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GIVEAWAY
Susan Sloate will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN giftcard to a randomly drawn winner.
Enter to win a $25 Amazon/BN GC.
