Trevor’s Song by Susan Helene Gottfried is an all access backstage pass into the scenes of a touring rock star band and the complex life of Trevor Wolff, the bassist of Shapeshifters. I found this novel well written with real emotional depth and interest {See my review}.

A tone-deaf rocker-at-heart, Susan worked in retail record stores, in radio stations, as stage crew, and as a promoter while earning two college degrees in creative writing. Susan walked away from a continued career in the music industry in order to write books, so it makes sense that most of her fiction revolves around rock bands. Once you get those record stores, radio stations, and fellow roadies and promoters under your skin, they never leave.Susan Helene Gottfried is the author of ShapeShifter: The Demo Tapes — Year 1, ShapeShifter: The Demo Tapes — Year 2, and Trevor’s Song. She can be found online at http://westofmars.com, where you can find The Meet and Greet, among other goodies.

When not writing, Susan captains the team at Win a Book, a promotional site for authors and book bloggers — and readers like yourself.

Susan is offering one lucky reader an edition of Trevor’s Song, read on for information on how you can WIN.

Welcome Susan!

Q: How does your collection of ShapeShifter short stories, The Demo Tapes (Year 1 & 2) add to the story of Trevor’s Song?

Susan: In a general sense, The Demo Tapes twins (hopefully soon to be triplets) flesh out the characters. The stories in the anthologies tell the backstory — everything from the day Mitchell and Trevor formally meet until the band is a huge sensation. A lot of people have found they grow to like Trevor via the Demo Tapes and, thus, he is less of a shock when you meet him in Trevor’s Song.

Q: Why did you choose to tell Trevor’s story, rather than Mitchell’s?

Susan: I have to laugh here because I didn’t get to choose. I began trying to tell Mitchell’s story, but Trevor swooped in and stole the show. The hearts of my readers, too, along with everything else he could get his mitts on. He’s just that sort of dude.

Q: Trevor is a complex and contradictory character, can you tell us something about him he would never confess to?

Susan: Well, the most obvious one is that he’s horribly, terribly in love with his best friend’s wife. He hides it not only out of pride but out of respect for the man he affectionately calls the Big Idiot. While Trevor likes people to think he’s nothing but irreverent, the truth is buried somewhere deep. Exposing that would kill him.

Q: Male breast cancer, a hidden health issue for men, rarely appears in fiction – what motivated you to highlight this disease in Trevor’s Song?

Susan: Before I’d ceded the fight over who got to star in the book, I’d been working on Mitchell’s story. At that time, Trevor was dead — a cancer victim. Testicular cancer made the most sense to have brought him down, but this is Trevor. That was too obvious. Given Trevor’s love of a woman’s body, having him be an atypical breast cancer patient (he’s a bit young to fit the profile of a male breast cancer patient) fit. The scenes where he’s coming around to acknowledge that he, Trevor Effing Wolff, has breasts are among my favorites in the book.

Q: Kerri is an artist and I know you claim that you can’t draw – but do you have a sketch or two of Trevor’s Cool Dudes lying around?

Susan: Only in my mind! If I had a way to get it out of my mind and onto paper, believe me, I’d be busy doing that. I’m glad you connected to Cool Dude; I was hoping Trevor wouldn’t overshadow him.

Q: ShapeShifter is a heavy rock band – what is your favourite rock song and /or band?

Susan: I am a big Metallica fan. I call them the soundtrack to my life, even though I was in my teens when they put out Kill ‘Em All. (Shows you how ancient I am!) For three years, I helmed an unofficial fan convention in their honor; it was great fun and I learned a LOT from it. I even fulfilled a dream or two along the way (to be a promoter and other dreams of that ilk!).

Q: I know you are a mild mannered wife and mother now , but any wild flings with rock stars in your past you can share?

Susan: Flings? Heck, no. I was the roadie chick. My goal at one time was to work for a record label, and when that’s your goal, you can’t have a trail of flings behind you. Besides, it’s way more fun to be the cool person, the one the guys can say anything to. Let me tell you: rockers say interesting things.

Q: What are you currently reading?

Susan: My friend Joel Kirkpatrick was kind enough to send me a copy of his Breathing Into Stone, but I may have to put it down; my book club is reading Dara Horn’s All Other Nights, and as the leader, it’s really hard to lead the discussion when I haven’t read the book. My e-book of the moment is Susan Roebuck’s Perfect Score. And I’m also reading one of my daughter’s middle grade books, The Wide-Awake Princess.

Q: Who should be reading Trevor’s Song?

Susan: I like to say, “Everyone!” to answer this question, but it’s not that cut-and-dry. Trevor loves his foul language. Plus, this is, after all, a story of a man on tour with a rock band. You bet there’s sex and drugs and rock and roll, although a friend described a very early draft as, “Rock and roll lite.” But if you can remember when MTV played music, if you’ve ever stared at a singer or a guitar player or a drummer and wondered what life would be like with him/her in your life, then you are the person I wrote this book for.

Well, and I did it for Trevor. He did demand it of me, after all.

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Trevor’s Song by Susan Helene Gottfried

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You can learn more about Trevor’s Song and her other books by visiting the authors website West of Mars read an excerpt of Trevor’s Song at POD People: Page 99

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