Meet Me at La Jazz is a comedy/drama is set in a seaside town in northern NSW. It is based around a cafe/ restaurant and a group of its regular patrons. In the cafe, tables are 'manned' by a varied mix of personalities who meet, interact, reveal, discover, and resolve. As with all of life, across the world, everyone has a story. This novel explores each characters' story, their personality, their dreams and their motivation. Readers will discover surprising little twists along the way.
The Characters
Jasmine is the common dominator in the restaurant, the manager who knows each of her patrons. This is not her first choice of career, circumstances have forced her into the position. Our reader will come to see different sides of Jas but accept her various facets.
Jane is the long-suffering wife of Cyril, an early retiree. They are experiencing a common problem when the primary breadwinner retires and they have to re-discover themselves as a couple to share a new and final stage of their life cycle. The couple have been together for a lifetime ? can they possibly be deciding that they are incompatible after all? An unexpected crisis is discovered which forces Jane to make some new decisions
Every town has its local characters. Arthur is ours. He has dementia ? with good days and bad days. In our town, our characters accept Arthur and treat him with tolerance and understanding. Except one ? and there's always one, isn't there?! We'd like our reader to realise that the illness is no reason to discard another human being as being of 'no value'.
Sydney is a young woman whose life is not travelling the path she expected it to. She is beginning to wonder what she's doing wrong and starting to question whether she really wants to conform to the stereotype of marriage home and family.
Our final primary character is Felix Bannermann ? or Slick Flick as he is commonly referred to around town. He is the epitome of corporate greed ? selfish, grasping, greedy, indifferent to any needs outside of his own. The man everyone loves to hate.
There are even more characters to meet in this easy-to-read, enjoyable book. Some you may want to hug, others you may want to slap! And there are some challenges and difficulties that they will encounter. Who will you be cheering for?
Book length: 70,000 words.
Autorentext
An award-winning Songwriter, published Author, and experienced playwright, Maureen O'Brien is in her element when she is surrounded by words.
From a corporate career - where she wrote Business Books, Training Manuals, Training Programs, and finance and business articles for various publications - she jumped ship in her very early 50s to follow her heart into Creative Arts.
As a full time musician she has won multiple songwriting awards, written and produced numerous cabaret shows, written produced and directed some 7 stage musicals.
She's written articles and editorials for industry publications, maintains her own website and blog sites, and scripts, directs and produces music and story videos for her various online channels.
Her first novel was published in hard copy in 2020 - it was not an experience she wished to repeat. She now focuses on self-publishing Ebooks and may eventually wander into the Audio-book sector in due course.