Tag: rock bands

Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“What’s that saying? Love is friendship caught fire? I’ve been waiting about a billion years for this one to catch.” – Alicia Thompson, Never Been Shipped

A band reunion set on a cruise ship is destined to change everyone’s lives in Alicia Thompson’s Never Been Shipped. As a teenager, Micah was the lead singer in a band that was shot to stardom after performing a song on a popular television show. The whole time she’s been in the band, Micah has had an uncomfortable and complicated relationship with music. After releasing their sophomore album, the group broke up. Well….. Micah destroyed the group and she hasn’t talked to her bandmates since she made that fateful decision. Over a decade later, the band is getting back together! They are reuniting for one more performance on a cruise themed to the popular television show they were on. Micah agrees to the cruise and, despite her reservations, is hopeful that she will learn from her past.

John, one of her bandmates, hasn’t seen or talked to Micah since she broke up the band. This was particularly hard on him, because Micah was his best friend until the band broke up. Did he want to be more than friends? Probably, but when the band was still together, he sat back and took a more passive role, hardly daring to rock the boat or cause waves. Getting back together with the band on the cruise means that John has one more chance to see Micah and see if he can get her to stay in his life.

The two forge a new relationship when they are onboard. Adult John and Adult Micah find themselves navigating new personal feelings as they work with their three other bandmates to make a new sound. Tensions build though, pushing them all to a point that the band might not able to recover from. Five days on the cruise. Five days for their lives to change forever.

This book had all the elements of my favorite romances: friends to lovers, forced proximity, unrequited feelings, queer representation, and spice! While this book is about rockstars, it’s more of a minor character. This slow burn to a happily-ever-after was absolutely enjoyable. I wasn’t as emotionally connected to the main characters, but the story was one that I had not read before.

The Beatles’ London by Piet Schreuders

- Ann

Beatles LondonIf you’re lucky enough to be going to London sometime and you’re a Beatles fan, be sure and pick up The Beatles’ London: A Guide to 467 Beatles Sites in and Around London. Here you’ll find a detailed and meticulous listing of every significant (and some not-so-significant) site associated with the Fab Four. Heavily illustrated and carefully mapped (including listing nearby Tube stations), you’ll soon be able to immerse yourself in Beatlemania. The book is divided geographically so that you can make the most of your time, and includes a special “Fast Fab Excursion”, an outlined walking tour that encompasses the most essential Beatle sites (allow about five hours), and a section on the filming of “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Help” and “Magical Mystery Tour”. While a lot has changed about London since the Beatles were in town, it won’t be hard to find yourself following in the footsteps of Paul, John, Ringo and George. And even if your travel plans don’t include London, any Beatles fan will be in trivia heaven with this book.

Worth the wait?

- Bill 2 Comments

Perhaps the Chinese Democracy album by Guns and Roses is named as such because it will be a cold day in hell before it or the real thing happens. If it were a person, it would almost be getting it’s driver license by now. Most of us were IN high school when they started working on it.

Two things you can be certain of after reading a bit of the new tell-all Watch you Bleed: The Saga of Guns n’ Roses :

1) Lead singer Axl Rose (real name William Bailey) has a violent temper and inflated sense of self-importance. Peruse the list of original band members and countless replacements that now refuse to sit in the same room as him for proof.

2) Their breakout recording “Appetite for Destruction” is consistently in the top 40 rock albums of all time, and has been certified as platinum over 18 times with worldwide sales over 28 million. The band’s lifestyle during this era was one ridden with Sodom and Gomorrah levels of excess as they climbed from the level of homeless drug dealers and grifters to multimillionaire addicts. The most shocking revelation is how none of them are corpses.

If you like Nicholas Sparks, this is NOT the book for you. However, it was penned by Stephen Davis, the same author as the definitive Led Zeppelin biography Hammer of the Gods.

The latest scoop is Chinese Democracy will be out around Thanksgiving. Of course, we’ve heard these whisperings before, only to be interrupted by another lunatic fit from the namesake’s rebel who is now in his late 40’s.

Although, the Cubs have a good shot at the World Series this year, so who knows?