The Story of John Nightly by Tot Taylor

 Welcome to Day 1 of the Blogtour for The Story of John Nightly. Before we start let me just say, I have not finished this book yet so I'm only commenting on what I have read so far. The only reason I haven't finished it though is time. I recieved the book a week ago and it is a big one. 800+ pages big.

Right, down to the important stuff...

The Story of John Nightly is a biography of a non-existent musical genius featuring real people and made up characters. Confused? Don't worry, it all becomes clear early on.

John Nightly comes to us as a shy chap when we first meet him but he has musical talents that rank him as a genius. As his talents are recognised and fame beckons so too does the high life and then he disappears from the limelight to live a reclusive life in Devon with his friend/carer John (believe me there are a lot of Johns in this book, and I do mean A LOT! I don't know if this is just a running joke by the author or something that will be explained later on)

The story slips between the Swinging Sixties and The Noughties and a lot of it is made up of interviews, newspaper and magazine articles etc. which makes it all seem as if John Nightly was real. The different sides of JN, the slightly obnoxious wunderkind of the 60's, the reclusive character of the 00's are well defined and relatable.

It's very obvious from reading this that the author knows a lot about music and the recording industry but this adds to the story rather than baffle the reader with 'industry-speak.

As I said earlier this is a huge book but it flows really well and I found myself doing the '1 more page' thing many times over.

This was a book like no other I've read before and I highly recommend it.

Thank you, as always, to Anne Cater for inviting me onto this tour and I hope you will try and find time to read the posts by the rest of the bloggers on the tour