BLURB:
KATHERINE RHODES has a tragic accident which sends her back in
time. She wakes up as the 20 year old hippie she was back in 1967 in the
Haight/Ashbury district of San Francisco. This was the period known globally as
the “Summer of Love”. It’s all here, Hippies, Hells Angels, Black Panthers and
the abhorrent war in Vietnam. “KATIE gets the chance to re-live this era with
her friends FROG and MOONBEAM. This time she knows what to expect and tries to
change things……….. Can she ?
Research
for Summer of Haight ’67:
Hello, my name is Diane Sager
and firstly I want to thank you for taking the time to read this and letting me
be your guest.
Summer of
Haight ’67 took me 15 months to complete, and research was a
way of life during that time. It’s the most intense and yet the most rewarding
research I have ever done. I think of it as one huge history lesson. Thank the
Gods for Google and YouTube!
It’s a supernatural time-travel book of sorts which involves a 66 year
old KATHERINE RHODES getting into a tragic accident that hurls her back in time
to 1967. She wakes up back in her 20 year old hippie body in the Haight/Ashbury
district of San Francisco. As many of you know, 1967 in the Haight/Ashbury
became known around the world as “The Summer of Love” She gets to re-live this era of hippies, free
love, drugs, music, politics and protests, with a wealth of knowledge and the
opportunity to right some wrongs.
It’s all fiction but I wanted the setting to be 100% authentic. I
immersed myself in the 60’s hippie culture and spent hours and hours on
research. The book is factually correct. I listened to music from the late 60’s
constantly, particularly the psychedelic era. I even bought a record player
(remember those?) I got my old LP’s out and bought even more from eBay…….. Grateful
Dead, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, The Charlatans,
Country Joe and the Fish, to name but a
few. There are Hells Angels, Black Panthers, political unrest and a horrific
war in Vietnam. I wrote and researched constantly during the 15 months it took
me to complete it. I wore hippie clothes and I
even found myself saying 60’s
words. I stopped at the drug scene though. It’s just not my bag!
I also have some first-hand experience to back up my research. As a very
small child my parents drove me through the Haight district to look at the
“freaks” as my Dad called them. I saw them dance around adorned with flowers
and beads, obviously high as a kite but I didn’t know that at the time!
Janis Joplin is in my book a lot and I watched as much video footage of
her and her band as I could find. There is some awesome footage on YouTube of
her singing at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. My husband and I even visited
the fairgrounds in Monterey to get the feel of the place. I read every book I
could find on Janis and even Peter Coyote’s “Sleeping where I fall” based on
the same period in time. Peter helped found “The Diggers” who fed the homeless hordes
of hippie drop-outs in San Francisco in 1967.
I’m also lucky enough to still live less than an hour away from San
Francisco, so my husband and I would go there and see where Janis Joplin or
Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead lived. We drank in the Dogpatch saloon near
the Hells Angels HQ. On another occasion my daughter and I rode the bus from
the top of Haight Street to the Hells Angels house, all in the cause of
authenticity. KATIE and her friends FROG and MOONBEAM travel this route in my
book to attend a Hells Angels party.
I wanted to take my readers back nearly 50 years and be sure it was
authentic, especially those that are too young to have been there. Even the
weather is accurate in the book – I checked.
There’s a saying, “if you can remember the 60’s you weren’t really there”
I think it was quoted by Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane. I take my readers back to the real deal so
they WILL remember it.
Soooooooooo, it was fun to research, fun to write and so far it’s fun
seeing people enjoy it and tell me about it.
Feeling dizzy, she shut her eyes and rubbed her
temples for several minutes, running through the accident in her mind. She remembered going down the embankment and
hitting the tree. She knew she had been
in an ambulance and she remembered a slew of doctors surrounding her. Yet here
she was sitting on a couch…somewhere familiar, a place she knew but couldn’t
recall.
A brown chenille bedspread covered the couch. There was a basic wooden coffee table,
several antique lamps, one in the corner and another on an old table by a
beveled window. The hardwood floor of the room was covered by an imitation
Persian carpet.
The walls and even the ceilings were filled with
posters; old bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Big Brother and the
Holding Company, the Yardbirds, and even the Monkees. Some were drug related, promoting marijuana,
mushrooms and LSD. Others were
political, protesting the Vietnam War, even including a caricature of Lyndon B.
Johnson dressed as John Wayne.
On the ceiling directly above her was a poster of
Clint Eastwood draped in a poncho, cigar resting on his lip. A pose from For a
Few Dollars More. She knew the film
well. Beside it were several blacklight
posters, psychedelic peace symbols, a hookah smoking caterpillar, and an
assortment of twirling colorful designs.
The television, an old tube model from yesteryear,
was in a wooden cabinet covered by stickers: STP; two local radio stations,
KLIV and KFRC; Champion spark plugs; bare feet and peace symbols of various
colors. Beside that was a flower painted guitar case that leaned against the
wall. Everything in the room was familiar. She knew this house. She had been
here many, many times, so why couldn’t she remember whose house she was in?
AUTHOR Bio and
Links:
Author
Diane Sager was raised and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her
awesome husband Russ, three dogs, two cats and an African grey parrot named
Storm. She holds a fascination for all things macabre and has developed a deep
knowledge of serial killers, vampires, zombies, the Tarot, world religions,
witchcraft, horror and the occult.
However,
her latest indie release, SUMMER OF HAIGHT ‘67 is none of the above albeit a
little supernatural……..This story is nestled between her zombie series “EVIL
VEIN” published by Permuted Press and penned under her “apocalyptic” name of
D.S.Sager
A
former high school teacher of emotionally disturbed and high-risk youth, Diane
is now dedicated to full time writing.
Contact
her at celticdi@gmail.com , @celticdi
on Twitter, www.evilvein.com , Author –
Diane Sager on Facebook.
Diane will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.
The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Love the fact that Janis Joplin is in this book a lot, I love her!!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed learning about the book. Thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteI love the blurb. Sounds like a great book
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