On Sunday, June 7th at 3 p.m., local award-winning author Céline Keating is hosting a book launch for her new novel, “Play for Me,” at BookHampton in East Hampton. The book is a 2015 National Indie Excellence Award novel finalist.
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“Play For Me.” (Courtesy Photo) |
Keating’s captivating new novel offers an enthralling and provocative look into mid-life second chances, infused with the power of music and art. “Play for Me” is about Lily, a mother who becomes transfixed by a guitarist’s unassuming onstage presence and beautiful playing during a folk-rock show at her son’s college. With his final note, something within her breaks loose. After the concert, Lily returns to her comfortable life—an Upper West Side apartment, a job as a videographer, and a kind if distracted husband—but she can’t stop thinking about the music, or about the duo’s guitarist, JJ. Unable to resist the pull of either one, she rashly offers to make a film about the band in order to gain a place with them on tour. But when Lily dares to step out from behind her camera, she falls deep into JJ’s world—upsetting the tenuous balance between him and his band mate, and filling a chasm of need she didn’t know she had.
“My challenge in ‘Play for Me’ was capturing – in words — the way music sounds, and exploring the deep emotion it evokes,” noted Keating. “At a concert, my heroine, Lily, hears music that unleashes something in her long buried, and is seduced by ecstatic, unfathomable – even dangerous – emotions. Such passion can be both destructive and creative. In the novel I wanted to explore the choices, risks, and potential in mid-life reinvention.”
Keating’s debut novel, “Layla,” was published in 2013. The author has been featured in many magazines like Minor 7th Magazine, Santa Clara Review, The North Stone Review and Poets & Writers, for her short fiction and her love for classic guitar.
BookHampton is located at 41 Main Street in East Hampton. For more information about the author or her books, visit celinekeating.com.
