Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Cat’s Eye Charm: A Witch Cats of Cambridge Mystery by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Cat’s Eye Charm: A Witch Cats of Cambridge Mys...: Reviewed by Jeanne   Becca’s life seems a bit fraught right now.   Business has been slow at Charm and Cherish the magic shop where sh...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Butterfly Trap by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Butterfly Trap by Clea Simon: Reviewed by Jeanne   Greg is an ambitious young doctor who should have it all.   He’s not like his friend Pete, who’s out for a good t...

Lesa's Book Critiques: Sunday Spotlight – Clea Simon

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Sunday Spotlight – Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Bad Boy Beat by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Bad Boy Beat by Clea Simon:   Reviewed by Jeanne Emily Kelton is a journalist, currently working for the Boston Standard on three months’ probation before becoming...

Lesa's Book Critiques: TO CONJURE A KILLER BY CLEA SIMON

 Lesa's Book Critiques: TO CONJURE A KILLER BY CLEA SIMON

SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL: Understanding Monsters, Surviving Monsters by Clea Simon

SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL: Understanding Monsters, Surviving Monsters by Clea...:   Nobody in our high school was completely surprised when Joel Rifkin turned out to be a serial killer. Were we shocked? Sure. The quiet kin...

Sample Sunday: Excerpt from Hold Me Down by Clea Simon

Mystery author Clea Simon is following up her recent guest post with an excerpt today from her new book. Hold Me Down is now out on eBook format with the print version scheduled to be released by Polis Books on October 19^th.

 

Chapter 1. 

Ten songs in and she stumbles, her tongue tangled in a lyric she should have down by heart. So much for hubris, Gal tells herself, struggling to get back in sync. To get back on the beat, fingers moving one-two one-two over the thick bass strings. So much for aging.

Lina, her guitarist, looks over, the slight rise of her eyebrows as eloquent as the fill she plays to cover. She’s fast—all metal and speed, still—and she hangs on the last barbed note, stretching it out as she waits for the high sign, the cue from Gal. A stadium move, but it has the crowd cheering.

It’s been years since Lina’s had to do that, Gal realizes, chagrined. It’s been years, period. In response, Gal grabs the mic stand, pulling it closer with her left hand while her right keeps the rhythm, thrumming away on the open E. The move centers her. She stands a little straighter, and then she’s back. Belting out the chorus she knows as well as the tattoo on her wrist—an F clef, faded blue—as the song pours out of her, the words coming easily now. Winding up to the hook. The line with the hiccup. One extra beat that makes the rhyme different. Makes it stand out.

She sees that now. Feels the crowd inhale in anticipation as she rounds into the chorus for the reprise, once again in time with Lina and Bobbi Jo. She’s learned a lot about songwriting in the last twenty years. Knows the tricks that turn a pop progression into an earworm. Wields them at will when she sits down at the piano. Or tries to, anyway. She hasn’t had a hit like this one, written by instinct, since then, but she’s done all right. And tonight, well, tonight is all about revisiting the past.

A brief pause between numbers. Lina’s changing guitars; Barry acting as her tech as he runs out with the Strat. Gal takes a moment to eye the crowd, really check them out, before Bobbi Jo counts off the beat. She doesn’t need the set list. None of them do. They’re not doing anything new tonight, and the progression is obvious—one song to the next. She hears the tick-tick-tick of Bobbi’s sticks and the feedback begins to growl. Breathing deep, from the belly, she steps back up to the mic stand and once more begins to sing.

It shouldn’t be automatic. Not tonight, and certainly not after that memory slip. Still, Gal can’t help drifting. Maybe it’s the crowd. Too many familiar faces missing; too many gone for good. Maybe it’s the venue. After years of smaller clubs—coffeehouses, mostly—she’s forgotten how far back the Ballroom goes, its rear corners shrouded in darkness. The houselights are down, and she can guess how she looks—how the band looks—from out there, so bold and so bright. Older, sure, but tough with it. Initiates. Blooded, in ways they can only imagine.

What those upturned faces don’t suspect is how much is visible from up here. She can see almost everything from the stage, back into those dark corners, and in the touring years, she did. Fucking, fighting. The crowd as oblivious of her gaze as they are connected to her, as if she were, in fact, some kind of dispassionate god. The way they want her, up here, high above them. The power of it. Pure sex, drawing them to her still. The control.

She closes her eyes then. Tells herself she wants to concentrate. To be in the moment, for this number and the one that comes after. The big climax, Aimee’s song, the reason they’re all here tonight. Bobbi Jo plays the opening roll. Not Aimee—who is?—but steady, with the hi-hat offsetting the big bass beat. And then it’s time.

Gal waits for the surge of emotion that comes when she sings her old friend’s lyrics. “A different kind of love, but it’s got me.” It always takes her hard, leaving her wired and jagged after. “Different, sure, but right.”

Memories of touring, of doing these songs night after night. Of Aimee, a monster on the set, her shoulders mounded with muscle. Lina to her right. The women who came before, who came after. Musicians and mates, all blending together now. That must be why her mind is playing tricks on her. Why she would forget the words to “Hold Me Down,” her own breakthrough song, the one that made the band. Why she would think, for a moment, that she saw a face—his face—shining up, pale and sweat-slick, from the middle of the heaving crowd. 

Clea Simon ©2021

Author of the Witch Cats of Cambridge, Theda Krakow, Pru Marlowe pet noir, and Dulcie Schwartz series, as well as the standalone World Enough and Hold Me Down, Clea Simon is a writer, journalist, and avid reader. Her new psychological suspense, Hold Me Down, published by Polis Books, comes out on October 19^th in print and October 5^th in eBook. She’s at http://www.cleasimon.com 

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Hold Me Down by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Hold Me Down by Clea Simon:   Reviewed by Jeanne It’s been awhile, but Gal was a star. Not in a girl band, but a genuine rock band and she’s quick to correct anyone ...

Guest Post: Getting Real (aka the Katie Perry conundrum) by Clea Simon

Please welcome mystery author Clea Simon to the blog today… 

 

Getting Real (aka the Katie Perry conundrum)

 

"What do you mean, they won't let you have an event?"

 

That was the response from a friend last month when I was telling her about trying to set up promotional events for my new Hold Me Down. "Yup," I had to tell her. "I love XYZ Books, too. But my sales are too low for them to want to host me again."

 

Hard to admit, but it's true. As I watch my 29th – yup – mystery Hold Me Down head out in the world, I've had to come to terms with a couple of realities.

 

For starters, I am working to accept that I’m probably always going to have to do copy editing to support my "book writing habit," as I jokingly (?) labeled it a few years ago.

 

The second, and harder, truth is that I’m probably never going to be widely read. Or, not as widely read as I'd like despite what feels like nearly nonstop promotion. Along this line, my husband Jon often refers to an Andre Dubus essay in which he related the fellow author Richard Yates saying to him: “I don't need money. I need readers.”

 

But something happened a few years ago that has almost almost helped me to come to terms with the latter. Jon and I were at Jazz Fest in New Orleans a few years ago – sigh, I miss Jazz Fest. I miss all live events, don't you? But anyway, there we were, wandering through the crowd and trying to figure out who to listen to for the last set of the day, when I realized that Katie Perry was headlining the Fest's biggest stage.

 

Now, I like her hits. They’re fun. I even enjoyed her Super Bowl halftime show (I mean, even besides left shark). But I’m never going to go to a concert of hers, so we wandered over to hear a little, hoping for "Roar" or "Firework." And it was … canned. Boring. Stale. And totally, totally packed to the point where, even pre-pandemic, it was uncomfortable.

 

So by mutual agreement, we left after maybe a song and a half and went to one of the smaller tents, where local singer/songwriter Aurora Nealand was playing to maybe 50 people and just killing it. She was SO GOOD. The clip below is of her doing some of the trad jazz she excels at (and throwing a mean football), but she has a ton of originals too. And, you know, a lot of her songs sound as poppy to me as Katie Perry’s. But she's never going to have that kind of an audience. Anyway, while we were sitting there, entranced, it hit me that maybe I’m more Aurora Nealand than Katie Perry, and I’m ok with that.

 

https://youtu.be/O9c3qgtn4Mw

 

(Video: Aurora Nealand & The Royal Roses)

 

Clea Simon ©2021

Author of the Witch Cats of Cambridge, Theda Krakow, Pru Marlowe pet noir, and Dulcie Schwartz series, as well as the standalone World Enough and Hold Me Down, Clea Simon is a writer, journalist, and avid reader. Her new psychological suspense, Hold Me Down, published by Polis Books, comes out on October 19th in print and October 5th in eBook. She’s at http://www.cleasimon.com

Lesa's Book Critiques: CLEA SIMON, GUEST AUTHOR

 Lesa's Book Critiques: CLEA SIMON, GUEST AUTHOR

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: A Cat on the Case by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: A Cat on the Case by Clea Simon:   Reviewed by Jeanne   Becca Corwin, aspiring witch, has a day job at the Charm and Cherish, a New Age shop in Cambridge.   Becca has ...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: An Incantation of Cats: A Witch Cats of Cambridge...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: An Incantation of Cats: A Witch Cats of Cambridge...: Reviewed by Jeanne Becca Colwin is slowly adjusting to her new chosen profession as a witch detective—that is, someone who inves...

Lesa's Book Critiques: Summer Mysteries (Thanks to Clea Simon)

Lesa's Book Critiques: Summer Mysteries (Thanks to Clea Simon)

Lesa's Book Critiques: A Spell of Murder by Clea Simon

Lesa's Book Critiques:  A Spell of Murder by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: A Spell of Murder by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: A Spell of Murder by Clea Simon: La Nuit approves of clever cats Reviewed by Jeanne Becca Colvin has been having a rough patch.   She’s lost her job as a res...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Fear on Four Paws by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Fear on Four Paws by Clea Simon: Reviewed by Jeanne I always look forward to a new entry in the Pru Marlowe Pet Noir series. For the uninitiated, Pru works as a ...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Cross My Path by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Cross My Path by Clea Simon:   Reviewed by Jeanne In a bleak, dystopian world, a young woman and her black cat seek to eke out a living by, as the girl puts...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: World Enough by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: World Enough by Clea Simon: Reviewed by Jeanne Tara Winton is divorced, working in communications for a large corporation, and really just marking tim...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: As Dark As My Fur by Clea Simon

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: As Dark As My Fur by Clea Simon: Reviewed by Jeanne Since the apparent death of her mentor, young teen Carrie Wright—better known on the street as Care—has been li...

Clea Simon, Guest Author (Lesa's Book Critiques)

Clea Simon, Guest Author (Lesa's Book Critiques)