The Phoenix Syndrome
by Claire Gem
Genre: Contemporary Romance , Women's Fiction
Turning
forty rocks a research technician's world. Her husband leaves her,
and then she's bitten by a mouse at work. She goes a littlecrazy,
taking off to chase after her old dream of a music career and her
newcrush: a rock band drummer.
Turning
forty, for Lannie Marvin, is rough. It's the day she discovers her
husband is leaving her for a younger "soulmate." At work, a
crazed mouse being treated with an experimental drug brutally bites
her. Then, Lannie goes a little crazy, too.
Seems
she's recently developed a serious crush on the drummer of her son's
favorite heavy metal band. Waking up to her husband's empty closet,
her finger still throbbing from the mouse bite, Lannie snaps. Under
the ruse of a shopping trip, Lannie kidnaps her sister-in-law/best
friend, and heads toward Bethel, New York - the site of the original
Woodstock concert.
Just
so happens Dreamwish is playing a concert there, and Lannie managed
to procure the pair of tickets her son won but couldn't use.
Tristan
Allard, the band's drummer, holds this benefit every year in memory
of his wife, whom he lost to breast cancer. The musician is beginning
to doubt his ability to write the band's music without his wife's
inspiration - she was also his muse. Plus, he's damn lonely. So when
a sexually charged, extremely attractive, slightly older woman
literally plows into him at the backstage reception, Tristan is ready
to learn more about her - and her long-buried interest in musical
composition.
The
two head off for a wild ride of a weekend, but reality bites back.
Tristan is headed to the UK to audition his next album's scores. And
an elevated libido isn't the only side-effect of that experimental
drug.
To
her horror, Lannie soon discovers the treated mice have gone deaf.
