Have you ever had a moment of retrospection, perhaps recalling your first love, when your ultimate summation was “What the hell was I thinking?” This is that kind of a love story (prologue).

A blue note.  As soon as it’s hit, you know it in your soul.  That’s what the blues is all about, and that’s what Blue’s Singer by Blue Sleighty captures between pages as emotionally fulfilling as a sexy sax played in the middle of a hot Texas night. 

We join Blue as she journeys down the dark twisting road of love and all its passion and pain.  Through a series of recollections and revelations, Sleighty pushes her readers into the arms of adventure and lets each chapter take them from one blues number to another, touching emotions that we have all shared and often do not dare admit.  The characters are so well portrayed that they seem to live on the page.  Sleighty’s writing style ensures readers do not simply read about the action.  They experience it.  After only a few paragraphs, you know you are right there with Blue.

Blue’s singer is Bette, a woman who’s presence is an sensually powerful as her voice.  She is Blue’s lust and first true love, the source of exquisite ecstasy.  She’s the perfect woman and the perfect match for Blue, except for one thing – her dominating, manipulative father.  He alone stands between true love conquering all:  “Powerful people worried me. The desire to have power made some men insane. I liked my life. And, I was fond of my hide. I tried not to piss off the wrong people” (79). He’s the only one powerful enough to be more than a threat and make that threat a reality.  He’s the only one that can offer Bette something that means more to her than Blue – a career.

Just as bittersweet as the collection of music expertly referenced throughout the story, Sleighty explores the joys of romantic love, the passion of sexual expression, and the rush of trying to hang on to a heart gone wild.  Addiction to the love of one’s life makes it difficult to say no, and with each new memory unfolded like a woman’s secrets under the expertise of a lover’s hand, we discover just how easy it is to succumb to the will of the woman that holds the heart.

In the midst of the romantic tug of war is the physical threat that haunts Blue, and when that threat returns to pay her back for the humiliation suffered at her hands, the price is a high one to pay.  A price that puts Blue at the mercy of a rescue from an unwelcomed bass player joining Bette’s band and the final choice that will change her life, and the shape of her heart, forever.  Ah, but in true Blue Sleighty style, she pulls herself up by her bootstraps and ends up with the upper hand, her heart a bit more bruised but still undefeated.

Much more than simply a story of sex and romance, this story explores issues of identity, life choices and the prices paid and consequences left to face.  Between right and wrong, lies the heart at the mercy of decisions, or indecision, and the various lives traveling along the road, in who’s hands is the power to give a heart a ride, a destination, or to hit and run, leaving whatever remains in the fumes of exhaust and the glow of disappearing taillights. 

Blue’s Singer aka Roadkill Heart will fulfill all expectations of excitement and adventure, tugging at the heart strings of any romantic while at the same time entertaining with visually enhancing descriptions and phrases, wit, sensuality, and a well-developed story line and characters. You will laugh.  You will cry.  You will get turned on, and yes, you will be satisfied.  Blue’s Singer is not just another book to read.  It’s an experience you don’t want to miss!

J Aguilera, MLA

Professional Reviewer, Writer, Poet