Title: SONG TO THE SIREN
Author: Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper
Genre: Supernatural, Spooky, Romance, Romantasy
Book Blurb:
When two young documentary filmmakers start investigating the enigmatic death of the infamous Reed Sinclair, founder of the never-quite-made-it indie rock group The Big Carnival, they interview Reed’s former girlfriend, photographer Samantha (“Sam”) MacNamara– who tells them the story of herself, Reed, and a frightening entity named Belle.
Belle may have simply been how Reed’s troubled mental state interpreted multiple tragedies and coincidences in his life… or she may have been a supernatural being.
As the filmmakers begin to uncover the frightening truth, Sam must face the riddle of her relationship with Reed if she wants to step into the light, away from the specter of Belle and the shadow that was cast over Sam’s life.
Excerpt:
Sam: I had this strange sensation when I entered the studio. It felt like someone or something was trying to push me out of the place. I actually fell down, right on my butt. Reed laughed, but he stopped laughing when I told him what happened. “That bitch!” Reed said.
“Who? Gerry? She was nowhere near me when I fell. I mean, you saw what happened,” I said.
“I wasn’t talking about Gerry,” Reed said.
Then a little later, I foolishly stepped on a cord in the studio. It was the one that attached Reed’s guitar to his amp. He used to call it the guitar’s “umbilical cord.” Cords and wires were always kind of a challenge for the Big Carnival. Some years, the band had to spend an extra five or ten minutes’ worth of time during set-up to untangle wires and cords and things... Reed also always kept a package or two or three of extra unopened guitar strings and bass strings ready, because once they were unsealed, they tended to end up knotted, somehow, if he or Pete didn't put them on the instrument immediately...
Anyway, Reed had used that guitar cord so much that the insulation on the cord had frayed. I got a nasty shock from that; I even lost consciousness. I kind of half-way remember hearing a female voice in my head say, “How badly do you want him? Do you want him so much that you’re willing to die?” It was odd because the voice had a bit of a lilt to it. I remember Reed kneeling over me... and did he have a look of relief on his face when I told him that I was fine!
Brandon: Did you tell him about the voice?
Sam: God, no. I mean, why freak him out?
I had a lot of little accidents like that. I remember crossing the street to the studio and a car came out of nowhere. I had the light and the crosswalk with me, but the driver obviously didn’t care. She came this close to hitting me with her car. She just sped away without even checking to see if I was all right.
Brandon: New York drivers, huh?
Sam: I guess. But the really scary thing happened a few days later. I was standing on a fire escape, taking pictures of Reed. The rest of the band were inside the studio, doing some overdubbed harmonies, and Reed and I thought it would be a good time to go outside and do a few photos. I was up near the top, because I liked the angle of the shots I was getting. Suddenly, the fire escape started shaking. The screws or whatever that attached it to the wall started popping out. I was maybe two stories up. I could’ve easily been hurt. I just froze, because I couldn’t decide if I should try to get all the way to the top, because if I didn’t make it I’d have farther to fall, or if I should try to go down, because if I didn’t get off in time, the whole thing might fall on me... Then, seeing how much trouble I was in, Reed started climbing up the fire escape. I told him not to. I mean, the weight of two people could have sent the whole thing tumbling down that much faster. Reed looked at the roof of the studio—he didn't look at me, he was looking at someone else—I looked up, but I didn’t see anything special... He yelled, “Not Sam! I know you're hungry, but... you can have anyone else, but not her!” The fire escape kept shaking and making, I don’t know, metal-fatigue groans and long squeaks... Then Reed nodded and said, “Fine. Do what you need to do. But never, ever touch my girl! She’s off-limits to you!”
The noises died down. The fire escape slowly stopped shaking. “Come down quick, Sam,” said Reed. “Come down while she’s still feeling generous.” He held out his hand to me, and we managed to make our way down the fire escape without further incident.
Ryan: Uh... then... uh... then I guess tragedy happened, huh.
Sam: You mean, what happened to Gerry, right?
Ryan: Yeah. What exactly happened, there? Can you tell us anything about that night?
Sam: Yeah. The album was about to be released. There was a publicity campaign and everything, tour dates were arranged. Reed and the band had a release-date gig. They were going to play in someone’s big loft. It was all very sophisticated. Every major player in the NYC art scene was there.
Brandon: Warhol?
Sam: Some of his people, yeah. There were record industry people and film people and magazine people and music critics and just about everyone. Gerry had been astute enough to have me do some really crazy art to hang all over the loft.
Ryan: Like the scratched negatives photos?
Sam: No, those came later. I’d taken to transferring photos to strange surfaces, such as cloth and even floor tiles. So there were pictures of the band on the curtains, the walls, and the floors. Wall-to-wall Big Carnival. People seemed to really dig that.
Brandon: Eventually, a tape of that night surfaced.
Sam: Blood and Darkness in NYC.
Brandon: Yeah. That was a scary thing to listen to.
Sam: Only at the end. I mean, at first, it was a very joyful show. The audience loved the band and the band loved the audience. Reed did covers, he did originals, he did audience requests. It was so much fun.
Brandon: And then it stopped being fun.
Sam: Yeah. There was a pounding on the loft’s front door. At first people didn’t notice. Finally, I did, and I opened the door. And then I screamed. You can hear the scream on Blood and Darkness.
Brandon: That was you that screamed? ...What exactly did you see?
Buy Links (including Goodreads):
What makes your featured book a must-read?
Barb answers: “A compliment that meant a lot to me was when a reader told me that Song to the Siren ‘didn't make her ADHD struggle.’ Another compliment that meant a lot to me was when another reader told me that she put off her chores for the entire weekend because she couldn't put Song to the Siren down, and wanted to give it to other readers so she could have a big discussion with people about characters the characters and ideas in it (and she requested more of my work)! Yet another compliment that meant a lot to me was when another reader quoted a line from Song to the Siren, saying, ‘This line made me cry.’ So, the answer to the question is: Song to the Siren is easy to read, compelling, original, thought-provoking, fun, spooky, and filled with characters that feel like real people instead of just characters in books. Our readers tell us that this book is easy to finish in a weekend-- but also that it stays with you for a long, long time.”
Giveaway –
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Open Internationally.
Runs November 12 – November 21, 2024.
Winner will be drawn on November 22, 2024.
Author Biography:
Barb, originally from Minnesota, grew up to become a guitarist/singer-songwriter and got an album put out on the Imp label. However, she also had health issues: chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia and extreme environmental sensitivities and allergies. (She also has complex post-traumatic stress disorder due to issues that happened in her youth.)
Park, from central Texas, grew up reading a great deal of comic books, and science fiction and fantasy literature. He stopped reading comics, started again when they got cool, and then someone in the letter columns of the comic Sandman announced that they were doing a fanzine for readers of that comic. Barb and Park both wrote in.
Barb and Park became aware of one another… Park liked the writing Barb submitted to the fanzine, and he wrote to Barb, and they began writing to each other. Then they started talking on the phone… they fell in love… they started visiting one another…
Reader, they got married (to each other).
They wrote about popular culture in columns on the internet... then they started adapting and editing manga for major American publishers importing manga (and sometimes their South Korean and Chinese counterparts) from the far side of the Pacific... Near the end of this, Barb and Park wrote the manga pitch The Hidden for TokyoPop, perfectly timed to appear the week that that company fell apart.
Then Barb and Park wrote the sci-fi vampire graphic novel Half Dead, co-published by Marvel Comics.
Somewhere around this time, Park successfully completed his Ph.D. in literature, and then Barb and Park started writing other projects, prose and comics, both together and independently. More recently, Barb and Park had a successful Kickstarter (with all stretch goals reached) for Hungry Ghosts, their project involving the work of Lafcadio Hearn and his writings about Japanese folklore.
These days, Barb and Park live happily together in Austin, Texas.
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