It’s Official. Margarita’s Dance, my first novel since 2016, is published in paperback. This seventh novel comes almost twelve years after my first book, Whispers in the Wind, was published. You can pick it up at THIS SPOT on Amazon. For the moment, that is the only place you will find Margarita’s Dance. The Kindle Version is available for pre-order on Amazon HERE right now with delivery July 30th.
So. A little about Margarita’s Dance. It isn’t Whispers in the Wind or Loving Deacon. It is spicy, tragic, and fun. It is more sensual than most of my stuff. It’s not a young adult novel, but it’s a long way from Fifty Shades of Gray. Straight up — some people will like it; some won’t. But I’m not Nicholas Sparks, so I don’t make a living at this; I write because I like to write. And that means, I write what I enjoy writing, because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to get those voices out of my head. I offer what I write to others in the event that they might like it, too. I enjoyed developing the characters in Margarita’s Dance, even the minor characters – like Boone, Elise, and Darwin. In fact, someday, Darwin may get his own story. I appreciate the energy Margarita brings to the story, and I really like the cover. It was a fun novel to write.
I’ll admit, I was a little slow to publish this story (actually, I’ve been slow publishing anything); it has been essentially done for quite some time. It has some Spanish in it, and I was having trouble getting reader reviews to check my translations. Finding enough review readers is always hard, but with another language, it was especially hard. I can usually get someone to read it, but getting a critical review from them is tough. I was finally able to get two Spanish reader reviews; it passed both, and I thank both of those people for taking the time to read my work. Hopefully, I haven’t totally screwed up the Spanish language.
Margarita’s Dance has a kind of strange origin. My stories can pop up from anything, but this one came from a totally different place. A lot of independent authors these days have playlists that they publish to go with their novels – songs that flow with the story or that the author listened to while writing. Honestly, I couldn’t do that, because in general, I write in silence. I prefer not to have the distraction. I tend to work hard at getting myself into the story and any outside distraction breaks that bubble. It would also be too easy for me to get lost in the music and never write anything.
However, Margarita’s Dance has a little bit of ‘playlist’ in its inspiration. One of my kids, I’m not really sure which one to give credit to, had a CD they recorded that seemed to never leave the CD player of our old Suburban. A good portion of it was Hinder, but there were three songs on the CD, by three different country artists, which gave me the idea for the structure of the story. It wasn’t the songs alone, but the order in which they were recorded that gave me this idea for a story in which a man goes through the stages of life represented in those songs. The first was Paint Me A Birmingham by Tracy Lawrence, which tells the story of a man who has lost his love, stumbling upon an old man painting pictures who captures what he’s feeling in an image. It’s a sad tale about love and loss (right up my alley). The second song was Tim McGraw’s It Felt Good On My Lips. It tells about a man who meets a spicy, fun, energetic woman, who impacts his life. And the third song was As She’s Walking Away by Zac Brown Band and Alan Jackson; a song about letting love get away.
After listening to these songs multiple times, one day while driving with the stereo cranked up and the windows down, which my daughter and I often did when mom wasn’t around, I told her about how I saw this story in those songs, and that story was going to be the skeleton at the core of my next novel. Throughout the writing of the novel, I tried to keep the emotions of those songs as my characters went through the stages represented by them. Although, I didn’t use the words or lines of the songs specifically, I hope you can feel the emotions of the songs and recognize the stages. There is one song which was not on that CD which had an impact on the story. It is a Spanish Bolero song by the name of Besame Mucho, written by Consuelo Velázquez which is mentioned in a scene in the novel. I listened to a number of versions, and I liked the Andrea Bocelli version the best. Though the feeling of the song is in the novel, Margarita puts her own spin on the words.
There you have it. I hope you like Margarita’s Dance, but if you don’t, maybe we can meet up on another novel in the future (and maybe we can keep that between ourselves). You could always take a look at one of the other six novels published. Coming up, I still have The Suicide Squeeze (a baseball romance) close to ready, and I’ve worked on both For Love and Honor (a war/love story) and the Pied Pipping of Peabody Pickerling (kind of a Mr. Holland’s Opus meets Goodbye, Mr. Chips) in the past year. My epic tale, Dhaenens’ Land, is still in the works. I have three stories started which I have considered putting together into a collection of short stories, rather than turning into novels. And at some point I’d like to do another sequel to Whispers in the Wind. Who knows? There might be something out there you’d like. If you do like it — Please, tell everyone you know… far and wide… share the post… buy copies for Christmas gifts… leave a review… send a note… take it on vacation… or to the beach… and enjoy a cup of coffee (or a margarita) while you read it.
Best wishes to all of you who have followed along. Thanks for the support.
Chuck
