Blogtour: The Musician and the Monster by Jenya Keefe

Please welcome Jenya Keefe with 

The Musician And The Monster 

Blurb:

Hatred is a spell only true love can break. 

Ángel Cruz is a dedicated session musician, until loyalty to his estranged family forces him to work for Oberon: the feared and hated envoy from the Otherworld.  

Overnight, Ángel is taken from his life, his friends, his work, and trapped in a hideous mansion in the middle of nowhere, under constant surveillance, and with only the frightening fae for company. 

Oberon’s poor understanding of humans combined with Ángel’s resentment and loneliness threaten to cause real harm to the pair. Then a long winter together in the mansion unites them in their love of music. Slowly, Ángel’s anger thaws, and he begins to realize that Oberon feels alone too.

Gradually, these two souls from different worlds form a connection like none other. But hate and prejudice are powerful things, and it’ll take all the magic of their love to stop the wider world from forcing them apart.

Get the book:

Me and ABBA and MelodEye

Most of the people I know who love ABBA now love it because of the Mamma Mia! Musicals. But I'm an old-school original ABBA fan. When I was a girl, I had a big sister who loved ABBA. I was the kind of child who wanted to be just like my cool and smart big sister, so I loved ABBA, too. 

I was not supposed to go into my sister's room and play her vinyl ABBA records when she wasn't around, but I totally did. (Sorry, Liz.) Later, when I was earning pocket change babysitting, I discovered that small children are totally joyous and un-self conscious about dancing to ABBA songs. I was the ABBA queen of my neighborhood.

While writing The Musician and the Monster, and I had the idea of having Angel's best friend write him a letter entirely using ABBA lyrics. That letter was not very easy to write - even for a megafan like me, it takes time to scour through ABBA songs, piecing together lyrics to make some kind of coherent narrative. But I did it! It took days. It was really fun.

And then I learned that, in order to include that letter in the book, I'd have to get permission to use all those lyrics from all those songs. That was a blow. 

I didn't want to lose the song-lyric letter, so I invented a Danish band called MelodEye and composed a letter in lyrics that I wrote for them, and it took about twenty minutes and wasn't nearly as fun. Sigh.

About the author:


Jenya Keefe was born in the South. She has an advanced degree in European history, and has spent much of her life working the kinds of jobs a history degree qualifies you for: gift shop employee, lumber grader, classifieds clerk, hot glass artist. She currently lives in the Seattle area, where she works at a library. She has always written stories.

You can find out more on her website or follow her on Twitter.

Giveaway:

To celebrate this release, Jenya is giving away a $15 gift card to Powell’s City of Books! Powell’s is an independent bookseller located in Portland, but those not in Portland can still shop online. Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on October 4, 2019. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

Promotional post. Materials provided by the publisher.