Daisy Jones and the Six
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
GENRE: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mainstream Fiction
During the 1970s, Daisy Jones and the Six were a larger than life rock n’ roll band, cranking out countless hits and enthralling fans with their onstage chemistry. But their famous personas hid much darker realities as the group members struggled with the temptations and vices that often accompany fame and fortune. Written in the style of a biography, this fictional story perfectly captures the essence of a momentous time in music history.
Author Biography
Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author of the New York Times Bestselling novels Carrie Soto is Back, Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones and the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, as well as One True Loves, Maybe in Another Life, After I Do, Forever, Interrupted. Her books have been chosen by Reese’s Book Club, Read with Jenna, Indie Next, Best of Amazon, and Book of the Month. Her novel, Daisy Jones and the Six, is now a limited series on Amazon Prime. She lives in Los Angeles. - Author's website
Booklist
/* Starred Review */ Daisy Jones and the Six was the hottest rock band of the seventies; the sexy voice of Daisy Jones and the pleading tones of Billy Dunne were the soundtrack to countless sweltering summer nights. Yet fans had no idea of the chaos behind the curtain. Daisy and Billy, oozing raw attraction on stage, couldn’t even look at each other as they walked off. When she wasn’t singing or writing songs, wild child Daisy was popping pills. Billy’s addiction was alcohol, until he met Camila and discovered a whole new kind of dependence. Graham, Eddie, and Warren loved the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, but Karen and Pete had other things on their minds. Framed as a tell-all biography compiled through interviews and articles, Reid’s (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, 2017) novel so resembles a memoir of a real band and conjures such true-to-life images of the seventies music scene that readers will think they’re listening to Fleetwood Mac or Led Zeppelin. Reid is unsurpassed in her ability to create complex characters working through emotions that will make your toes curl. HIGH-DEMAND BACK STORY: Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine is producing a 13-episode series for Amazon. Order accordingly. -- Tracy Babiasz (Reviewed 11/15/2018) (Booklist, vol 115, number 6, p24).
Publisher's Weekly
/* Starred Review */ Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo) delivers a stunning story of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll in the 1960s and ’70s in this expertly wrought novel. Mimicking the style and substance of a tell-all celebrity memoir, the book is narrated by a character whose identity is a secret until the end. The central figure, free-spirited yet distinctly complicated Daisy Jones, grows up as the daughter of a famous artist and a French model, crashing her 14-year-old underage self into clubs on L.A.’s Sunset Strip and, increasingly, consuming large quantities of both legal and illegal drugs. When she finds her forte in singing and songwriting, Daisy’s world changes. Signed to Runner Records, she soon meets label mate and tortured singer-songwriter Billy Dunne. Billy goes from not wanting Daisy in his band to writing some of their biggest hits with her, and their chemistry is explosive. But Billy nearly ruined his marriage to true love Camila by being unfaithful, drinking, and drugging, and he won’t throw away his second chance with her—although he tries to get Daisy into recovery, as he sees her heading down the same dark path that he went down. Add in a colorful cast of backup musicians, all of whom have their own demons (particularly Billy’s overshadowed brother, Graham, and his on-again, off-again girlfriend and bandmate, Karen), and Reid creates both story line and character gold. The book’s prose is propulsive, original, and often raw. Readers will accept and appreciate why and when the narrator’s identity is finally revealed. Reid’s gift for creating imperfect characters and taut plots courses throughout this addictive novel. Agent: Theresa Park, Park Literary & Media. (Mar.) --Staff (Reviewed 01/21/2019) (Publishers Weekly, vol 266, issue 3, p).
Songs in Ursa Major
by Emma Brodie
Raised on an island off Massachusetts by a mother who wrote songs for famous musicians, Jane Quinn is singing in her own band before she's old enough to even read music. When folk legend Jesse Reid hears about Jane's performance at the island's music festival, a star is born--and so is a passionate love affair: they become inseparable when her band joins his on tour. Wary of being cast as his girlfriend--and haunted by her mother's shattered ambitions-- Jane shields her relationship from the public eye, but Jesse's star power pulls her into his orbit of fame. Caught up in the thrill of the road and the profound and lustful connection she has with Jesse, Jane is blind-sided by the discovery she makes about the dark secret beneath his music. Heartbroken and blackballed by the industry, Jane is now truly on her own: to make the music she loves, and to make peace with her family Shot through with the lyrics, the icons, the lore, the adrenaline of the early 70s music scene, Songs in Ursa Major pulses with romantic longing and asks the question so many female artists must face: What are we willing to sacrifice for our dreams?
The Farewell Tour
by Stephanie Clifford
It’s 1980, and Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time.
Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover, and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour featuring some old hands from her early days playing honky-tonk bars in Washington State and Nashville, plus a few new ones. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time and bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last, and most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood.
As the novel crisscrosses eras, moving between Lillian’s youth—the Depression, the Second World War, the rise of Nashville—and her middle-aged life in 1980, we see her striving to build a career in the male-dominated world of country music, including the hard choices she makes as she tries to redefine music, love, aging, and womanhood on her own terms.
Nearing her final tour stop, Lil is forced to confront those choices and how they shaped her life. Would a different version of herself have found the happiness and success that has eluded her? When she reaches her Washington hometown for her very last show, though, she’ll undergo a reckoning with the past that forces her to reconsider her entire life story.
Summer Fun
by Jeanne Thornton
Gala, a young trans woman, works at a hostel in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She is obsessed with the Get Happies, the quintessential 1960s Californian band, helmed by its resident genius, B----. Gala needs to know: Why did the band stop making music? Why did they never release their rumored album, Summer Fun?
And so she writes letters to B---- that shed light not only on the Get Happies, but paint an extraordinary portrait of Gala. The parallel narratives of B---- and Gala form a dialogue about creation—of music, identity, self, culture, and counterculture.
