Back Story

Once upon a long time ago I wrote a novel. It started as a rant about the state of the music business and sort of grew. It grew into a radio script that the BBC almost broadcast and ended up as a hardback book that was actually published in 1994. Loyal friends bought copies, my Mum actually read it (too much swearing, Jim) and that was that. There was no such thing as ‘going viral’ in 1994 but it’s safe to say that it didn’t. Years past, tumble weed rolled down the empty streets of my writing career and then a chance conversation 24 years later revealed its frozen existence to a new friend who was setting up a publishing company and looking for material. She read it, she liked it, she wanted to re-launch it but thought it needed a make-over. A better title, more jokes and less pointless rambling about music theory. So it came to pass. I spent last summer editing and re-writing it and here it is; the novel formerly known as Sing and Shout rises from the ashes as: ‘EuroMission Impossible’. Welcome to the least coveted singing competition on the continent! What was once an insight into the contemporary music scene is now a period drama set in 1989. No internet, no social media and mobile phones the size of a breeze block. I know; how did we live?

I had great fun re-writing it. The story is the same but the telling more exotic. I mean, what’s the point of writing a period drama if you can’t jazz things up a bit? So if you read it before, it’s worth reading it again, if you haven’t read it before here’s the pitch: It’s a tale of skullduggery in the music biz; the quest for celebrity at any price, betrayal, revenge and redemption by the last thing you might expect in the industry; music. So the paperback is finally on the shelves, or at least it will be in March. Enjoy!