Sixteen Songs About Regret

By J.S. Cook

1 review

Read an Excerpt

Release Date May 20, 2013
Type Novels
Pages 234
ISBN-13 978-1-62380-492-3
SKU 3858

Select format

$14.99

Buy from Retailer

Add to wishlist

Retailers

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

By J.S. Cook

Prodigy pianist Simon Duckworth has a dark past. After being violently raped when he was thirteen, he flees to London, ashamed and determined never to tell a soul. He gets a job at a Denmark Street music shop, but it stifles him. At the first opportunity, Simon answers an ad for a musician, an act that changes his life forever.

Stephen Abednego has seen the same ad. He arrives in London with little more than his ambitions and a sheaf of poems, but together, they’re enough to get him hired. Under their new manager’s watchful eye, Stephen falls for Simon—but Stephen deeply closeted, and Simon may be too emotionally scarred for a mature relationship.

With their manager’s help, their music rises, dragging them into the hectic world of superstardom, but success doesn’t come without a price. Each step out of the ennui and coal smoke of 1960s industrial London must be paid for in regret. With social convention standing between them and the whole world watching, Stephen and Simon discover that finding each other is not as easy as it seems.

Cover Artist: Reese Dante

Genres Contemporary Romance / Gay

Reviews

Write Review

Sort

- Review of Sixteen Songs About Regret
- By Melissa Leach
  on May 30, 2013 08:05
- I will preface this review by saying this was not an easy book to read. Simon Duckworths life was riddled with more tragedy than one man should have to endure from sexual abuse and rape to poor body image and bulimic tendencies to closeting his sexuality for the sake of public image; all resulting in multiple suicide attempts just to escape the everyday pain of his life. His meteoric rise to rock star fame was sudden as was his crash landing when a stalker pushes him beyond the limits of his fragile psyche. Alone and broken there is only one thing that can save him: Stephen.
  This book wasnt what I expected and I like when an author surprises me with a unique reading experience. This is a book not just to be read, but to be experienced. While the time jumps could be a bit jostling and confusing at times, I thought it was a brilliant tactic in that it slammed you right into the characters frame of mind you experienced all the chaos, uncertainty, isolation, and confusion that ruled the everyday life of Simon Duckworth. When you add drug abuse and homophobic violence into the mix, the churning mess his mind becomes can be a very scary place to be. It was very unsettling and disorienting.
  And while the story may not have had your typical HEA, in the end, Simon was finally able to face his demons and find a measure of peace. The story was an exhausting and emotionally draining experience, but well worth the journey.

Sixteen Songs About Regret

Select format

Sixteen Songs About Regret

We Also Recommend