Marissa Stapley's latest takes readers on a road trip to solve a rock 'n' roll mystery — read an excerpt now
The Lightning Bottles will be out on Sept. 17, 2024
In Marissa Stapley's newest novel, The Lightning Bottles, an unlikely duo of fallen rock star Jane Pyre and sullen teenage superfan Hen take a road trip to find out what happened to Elijah, Jane's bandmate and soulmate.
A love letter to music and female artists who deserve the same powerful legacies as their male counterparts, Stapley wrote The Lightning Bottles to give a voice to both them and the teenagers listening to music, waiting for their lives to begin.
"The artists I grew up on tried to teach me that heroes could save themselves, heroines could stand alone, and you could be yourself even if that wasn't what the world expected of you," she told CBC Books in an email. "They changed my life and left their mark on the world—and I hope this novel stands as a monument to their talent and brings them all back into the conversation."
Stapley is a Toronto writer, journalist and author of romance, thrillers and romantic comedies. Her books include Mating for Life, Things To Do When It's Raining, The Last Resort, Lucky and The Holiday Swap, which was co-written by Karma Brown under the pen-name Maggie Knox.
The Lightning Bottles will be released on Sept. 17, 2024. You can read and excerpt below.
Prologue
"Where were you when you found out rock legend Elijah Hart had disappeared? That the talented yet troubled musician had taken a rowboat into the stormy waters off of Iceland's south coast and never returned?"
The radio DJ's voice rumbles through the air in 17-year-old Hen Vögel's bedroom. "I was right here," she says to her walls.
"Maybe you were returning home from work when you learned the front man of the multi-platinum-selling husband-and-wife duo the Lightning Bottles had been declared dead," the DJ continues. "Maybe you were on a first date. Or a last date. Or driving in your car, with the radio on." Hen shakes her head; she has never done any of those things.
"How did you feel when you realized his miraculous voice had been silenced forever?"
DJ Grüber does this every year. In case the emotions are fading, he tries to stir them up. But Hen doesn't need stirring. The difference between 13 years old and 17 is supposed to be a caterpillar versus a butterfly. But Hen has remained stuck in her cocoon since the day he disappeared, five years before, trying to rewrite the story of her hero's demise.
Hen has remained stuck in her cocoon since the day he disappeared, five years before, trying to rewrite the story of her hero's demise.
She stares up into his eyes, gazing out at from a poster tacked to the wall above her bed. There's a permanent sunbeam stained across his t-shirt now. He's tall and lean, his hair unkempt, like he just woke up. One of his front incisors overlaps the other — Hen knows the details of Elijah Hart's face the way she knows the curves of the letters in her own name — and his left canine points out a little so when he smiles he looks a bit like a vampire, but not in a dangerous way. It's just that you find yourself wishing he were immortal. His eyes are ocean green, but with a ring of yellow around the iris that makes them look blue at the right angle.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I'm DJ Jon Grüber. But you probably already knew that, didn't you?" Hen turns her attention back to the radio show and sighs. Why do adults always try to act so cool? DJ Grüber isn't cool, he's 50. He plays a clip of himself announcing the news about Elijah's disappearance, his voice in the early winter of 1994 not quite as cigarette smoke raspy as it is five years on. Icelandic authorities are reporting … the boat has turned up empty … no sign of the body … vigils being held around the world … I hate to be the one to have to tell you this … little hope for survival at this point…
Hen flops backwards on her bed and wraps her arms around herself in a lonely sort of hug. She remembers the days that followed this terrible news. The television images of Icelandic search-and-rescue boats. Helicopters, divers, a splintered rowboat on a black sand beach, a shoe and a waterlogged leather jacket washing ashore. There was the revelation that Elijah Hart had made one phone call in the hours before his disappearance — to his estranged best friend and former bandmate Kim Beard. Exactly what was said during that call had never been confirmed; Kim Beard wasn't what anyone would call a reliable witness. Elijah's body never turned up, but as the days passed his death became a given. No one could have survived for long in such cold and tumultuous water. Except —
Hen sits up and meets Elijah's two-dimensional, ocean-eyed gaze again. "How am I supposed to solve the mystery of you when I have no one to talk to?"
She leaves the window open, lets the cold air flow into the room. Maybe it will jolt her into action, finally.
A scratch at her bedroom window is all that answers. A soft meow. The stray calico she feeds is on the sill, and when Hen lets him inside he winds himself around her ankles like a friendly, furry serpent. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a treat. He takes it from her hand, then licks her palm once with his pink sandpaper tongue before trotting off to the corner where she has set up a bed for him with old army blankets she found in the attic. She leaves the window open, lets the cold air flow into the room. Maybe it will jolt her into action, finally.
"We lost a rock god in 1994, five years ago today," DJ Grüber growls from the radio. Hen winces. Elijah wouldn't want to be called a god. He was mostly affable in interviews — but say the wrong thing and a shadow would pass over his splendid face. "If you're not a hero, or an icon, or a god," Barbara Walters had once asked him, "who are you then, Elijah Hart?"
"I'm really just a session musician," he'd replied, gifting her one of his seductive grins as Barbara visibly melted. Elijah had turned to Jane Pyre then, looking at his wife the way he always did, as if he saw a pyramid full of hidden wonders, not an angry-looking woman in a plaid miniskirt and 20-hole Doc Marten boots. "It's Jane I'm more interested in."
Barbara had looked at Jane too, tilted her head and asked, "Okay, how would you define your husband, Jane? "
"I wouldn't," she had replied. Hen remembered liking that answer. It's what Hen would have said too, had she been lucky enough to be sitting there in Jane's place. But it had only cemented Jane Pyre as unknowable, obtuse. Not especially likeable. How had someone like Elijah Hart ended up with someone like her? It was yet another mystery about him.
How had someone like Elijah Hart ended up with someone like her? It was yet another mystery about him.
Now, DJ Grüber's voice edges its way back into Hen's consciousness. "To mark the fifth anniversary of the loss of Elijah Hart from this world, here's what we're going to do…" Hen leans forward, holds her breath, hopes he might say, We're going to tell you incredible news: our hero has been found!
"We're going to listen to some tunes, relive some hard moments, share some memories," DJ Grüber says instead. Same old same. Hen stands. She crosses the room to her desk, where she reaches down and touches the closed drawer, the place where she keeps a secret that could change everything, if only she had the courage to let it out.
From THE LIGHTNING BOTTLES by Marissa Stapley. Copyright © 2024 by Marissa Stapley. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster Canada, a Division of Simon & Schuster.
