One Week to Go!

Holy moly, my debut novel, Searching for Jimmy Page, will be released in exactly one week! That’s 7 days, 168 hours, 604,800 heart thundering seconds of waiting for my baby to burst into the world. I am beyond grateful to Joe Taylor at Livingston Press for accepting the novel for publication over a year ago and for nurturing it during its gestation. I’m also grateful to my late mother, Frances Baker Alexander, who always supported my Rock ‘N Roll dreams and obsessions. Check out the music-inspired needlepoint she made for me when I was in my early twenties. The pattern was for classical music, with classical music instruments. She changed it to suit my Rock ‘N Roll proclivities, adding the names of my favorite artists, including, of course, Led Zeppelin. Note the homage she paid to Jimmy Page (his sunburst Gibson Les Paul and violin bow).

In the photo, I’m wearing the Levis jean jacket Mom gave me for Christmas when I was fourteen years old. It’s threadbare and faded now, but it still fits and I treasure it. In fact, it has such sentimental value to me that I gave Searching for Jimmy Page protagonist, eighteen-year-old Luna, virtually the same jacket, which I describe in the chapter in which she journeys to Kidderminster, UK, in search of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham’s grave:

From Searching for Jimmy Page:

“I wasn’t sure how to get to the cemetery, or even how far away it was, and I couldn’t find an attendant to ask. I wandered to the front of the crude station building to look for a bus stop. The rain and gray and cold had returned, and with it a sense of foreboding. I stood under an awning and shivered. I’d worn another hole in the knee of my pant leg, and my coat, a fleece-lined denim jacket Grandma had given me for Christmas when I was in eighth grade, was becoming frayed and thin. She and Aunt Lorraine had both bought me new clothes through the years, but for some reason I’d always thought this particular pair of jeans and my jacket brought good luck, so I’d refused to let Grandma trash them.”

Fingers crossed for good luck with the October 20, 2021 publication of Searching for Jimmy Page. I hope you’ll spread the word to your friends and family and on your social media platforms. For more information and reading dates and locations, please direct folks to my website: www.christyalexanderhallberg.com.

Rock on, ya’ll,

Christy