Spotlight: Hysterical Love by Lorraine Devon Wilke (playlist, giveaway)

Hysterical Love
written by Lorraine Devon Wilke
published by Lorraine Devon Wilke

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Smashwords, Book Depository, Goodreads

About the book–from Goodreads: Dan McDowell, a thirty-three-year-old portrait photographer happily set to marry his beloved Jane, is stunned when a slip of the tongue about an “ex-girlfriend overlap” of years earlier throws their pending marriage into doubt and him onto the street. Or at least into the second bedroom of their next-door neighbor, Bob, where Dan is sure it won’t be long. It’s long.

His sister, Lucy, further confuses matters with her “soul mate theory” and its suggestion that Jane might not be his . . . soul mate, that is. But the tipping point comes when his father is struck ill, sparking a chain of events in which Dan discovers a story written by this man he doesn’t readily understand, but who, it seems, has long harbored an unrequited love from decades earlier.

Incapable of fixing his own romantic dilemma, Dan becomes fixated on finding this woman of his father’s dreams and sets off for Oakland, California, on a mission fraught with detours and semi-hilarious peril. Along the way he meets the beautiful Fiona, herbalist and flower child, who assists in his quest while quietly and erotically shaking up his world. When, against all odds, he finds the elusive woman from the past, the ultimate discovery of how she truly fit into his father’s life leaves him staggered, as does the reality of what’s been stirred up with Fiona. But it’s when he returns home to yet another set of unexpected truths that he’s shaken to the core, ultimately forced to face who he is and just whom he might be able to love.

Lorraine Devon Wilke, author of the acclaimed debut novel, After The Sucker Punch, brings her deft mix of humor and drama to a whip-smart narrative told from the point of view of its male protagonist. Hysterical Love explores themes of family, commitment, balancing creativity, facing adulthood, and digging deep to understand the beating heart of true love.

 

The Hysterical Love playlist by Lorraine Devon Wilke

 

Several musical themes weave through the narrative of Hysterical Love. The first is the jingling sound of the neighborhood ice cream truck, the second, the recurring theme of Dan’s affection for B.B. King, and the blues in general. The breakup with Jane brings in heartbreak, Bob likes Kanye, Bruno Mars and country music, and the road trip to Oakland—with its mix of adventure, infatuation, and revelation—has its own soundtrack. All winding up to the long road home, where love is an enigma, but still . . . hope remains.

The Hysterical Love Playlist might go a little something like this:

1. Ice Cream Truck song: http://youtu.be/8uzQuHsqTXo

2. Bruno Mar’s “Locked Out of Heaven” (Bob’s playlist): http://youtu.be/e-fA-gBCkj0?list=PLI6Wzy3GVpd4wadT_grlEPxdHeZKAaGkj

3. Kanye West’s “Power” (on Bob’s stereo): http://youtu.be/L53gjP-TtGE

4. Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” (Jane’s favorite song) http://youtu.be/BloxxEFwibo

5. You Lost That Lovin’ Feeling (1965 hit… Barbara from Oakland): http://youtu.be/xEkB-VQviLI

6. B. King’s “I’ve Been Downhearted” http://youtu.be/MC12DgJtqzs

7. Luke Bryan’s “That’s My Kind of Night” (Bob’s country radio pick) http://youtu.be/crCqWK3SmRo

8. Jon Waite’s “I Ain’t Missing You” (a Jane/Dan song) http://youtu.be/K5J1mn_u0rM

9. B. King’s “How Blue Can You Get” http://youtu.be/l45f28PzfCI?list=PLWCJOLJ9si2mTUltT1uiYo2gdHYCQfFfz

10. Creedence Clearwater’s “Born On A Bayou” (road trip music) http://youtu.be/wIjUY3pjN8E

11. Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally” (more road trip music) http://youtu.be/CwB40qTfuvI

12. Prince’s “The Most Beautiful Girl” (Fiona’s song) http://youtu.be/wita0Ws8qRA (cover version)

13. LDW’s “It’s Not Over” (Jane….): https://soundcloud.com/lorraine-devon-wilke/its-not-over-by-lorraine-devon

14. Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name (Oakland song – no spoilers about who!) http://youtu.be/KrZHPOeOxQQ

15. Adele’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” http://youtu.be/Vfj-peP6a7o

16. B. King’s “Why I Sing The Blues” http://youtu.be/HJrZ1LAOLYQ

17. Ain’t No Way For Me To Love You (Jane’s last song) http://youtu.be/PB2Mu2zBzjw

18. John Meyer/Katy Perry’s “Who You Love” http://youtu.be/nSRCpertZn8

 

 

About the author: LORRAINE DEVON WILKE is a longtime Huffington Post contributor and author of the acclaimed debut novel, After The Sucker Punch, and the upcoming novel, Hysterical Love. She is also a columnist for the award-winning Northern California newspaper, The Ferndale Enterprise.

A writer, photographer, and singer/songwriter, Devon Wilke started early as a creative hyphenate. First, there was music and theater, next came rock & roll, then a leap into film when a feature she co-wrote (To Cross the Rubicon) was produced by a Seattle film company.

She has written for and performed on theater stages, and accrued a library of eclectic and well-received feature screenplays, including The Theory of Almost Everything, which was a top finalist in the 2012 Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest, and A Minor Rebellion, a 2014 finalist in the same competition. She kept her hand at music throughout—songwriting, recording, performing—leading to the fruition of her longtime goal of recording an original album (Somewhere On the Way), which garnered stellar reviews and can be found on iTunes and CDBaby.com.

Devon Wilke splits her time between Playa del Rey and Ferndale, California, where she lives with her husband and family.

Find Ms. Wilke here: web, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads

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