Welcome to Cozy Wednesday!
I am happy to have Joelle stop by today!!
Escape into a song
By: Joelle Charbonneau
I love to sing. Not just because I teach voice or used to perform on stage or currently write about an opera singer. Those are just happy career accidents. If I’d never taught a single student, performed in a show or written any of the Glee Club
But’s it’s more than loving it. I need to sing. It’s my escape from everything around me, which is funny when I consider that never do I feel sadness, joy, happiness or despair more deeply than when I sing. Music gives me a place to put all my hopes and dreams and fears. When I’m singing I feel every note resonate deep in my soul.
Funny enough, because I’m a teacher and a professional performer, I don’t find the same kind of escape in just listening to music. When I am listening to others sing, I analyze every moment both mentally and emotionally. I think about what would make the song better. I pick apart the ideas behind the lyrics and melody.
Hmmm….I guess it probably isn’t a surprise that I can’t write when I have music on. Music is never in the background for me. And it doesn’t just set a mood. It’s alive and real and makes me want to jump up and take part in it. Which means if I put music on in my house while writing there would be a lot of singing and not a lot of writing. Great for personal entertainment. Bad for deadlines.
For my heroine of the Glee Club
So, today I challenge you to find your escape into music…if you only listen – that’s okay. But if you sing at the top of your lungs so much the better.
~Joelle
Guess What Joelle does when she is not writing mysteries…
Joelle Charbonneau has performed in opera and musical theatre productions across Chicagoland. She now teaches private voice lessons and is the author of two mystery series: The Rebecca Robbins mysteries (Minotaur Books) and the Glee Club mysteries (Berkley). Joelle’s also the author of New York Times Best Selling THE TESTING, the first of a young adult trilogy.
Learn more at www.joellecharbonneau.com, www.facebook.com/AuthorJoelleCharbonneau, or find her on twitter at @jcharbonneau
A Chorus Lineup
(A Glee Club Mystery)
3rd in Series
Cozy Mystery
A Berkley Prime Crime Mystery
The Berkley Publishing Group (January 7, 2014)
Published by The Penguin Group
Cover Illustration by Paul Hess
Cover Design by Rita Frangie
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0425252499
E-Book File Size: 1631 KB
ASIN: B00D7Z4GIW
The Prospect Glen Glee Club, Music in Motion, is in Nashville for a National Show Choir competition. They have the talent. They have the heart. Nothing can stop Prospect Glen’s choir from taking home the trophy. But below the soaring voices, there are murmurs of suspicion. So-called accidents keep befalling the other choirs. Yet Prospect Glen remains untouched.
With their competitors clamoring for them to be disqualified, the group may soon be singing a different tune. If there’s anyone who can restore harmony to the competition, it’s Paige. But this time she’ll needs to stick her neck out to discover who’s behind the sabotage, or she may end up singing her own swan song…
Dollycas’s Thoughts
This a fun cozy series. Fans of the television show Glee
Again Joelle Charbonneau has hit all the right notes. Her characters just sing on these pages. As these stories continue the characters continue to grow and evolve, both the adults and the teenagers.
Paige is still trying to make it as an opera singer but she really enjoys working with these kids. As if a long bus ride and a week long stay in a hotel with a bunch of teenagers weren’t enough one of the local competition volunteers, LuAnn, ends up dead. This volunteer had a real beef with Paige and the Music in Motion group. She was doing everything she could to get them disqualified and no one seems to know why. Then of course Paige is the one to find her body after an apparent hit and run. This moves her the “person of interest” list when the case is ruled as a homicide and this time she is out of her favorite detective’s jurisdiction. But Millie, Aldo and Killer do make the trip so Millie can do the team’s makeup. That Killer is quite the canine. Hopefully they can get Paige out of this mess.
The author takes us behind the scenes of the competition from the rehearsals to the final performance and everything in between. She definitely writes what she knows.
She has choreographed a very clever mystery too. Plenty of real suspects and unexpected turns. One that made this reader quite happy.
Thanks to the people at Penguin I have 2 copies to give away!
Contest is open to anyone over 18 years old
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Contest Will End February 12, 2014 at 11:59 PM CST
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CLICK HERE FOR ENTRY FORM
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Charbonneau hits all the right notes!
Of course my full review can be found at the bottom of this post along with a giveaway.
