"An exceptional novel that explores the pitfalls of the music industry"

• ASIN: ‎ B0CNKPMG8B
• Publisher: ‎ Perfect Profit Publishing (8 Dec. 2023)
• Language: ‎ English
• Print length: ‎ 428 pages
• Genre:  British & Irish Contemporary Literature

The BookViral Review:

Bands come and go and so do their stories but Tim O’Shaughnessy’s Hello Hammersmith is a winner from every possible angle, reminding us of the comforting, even cathartic, gratifications of a feel-good story well told.

A grounded and thoroughly enthralling exploration of what happens when former headliners fall from grace, what O’Shaughnessy gives us is not a comeback story but something much rarer: a rounded, original portrait of good people and the mistakes they make on their way to achieving their dreams. A durable tale of love, fame and crushing tragedy, told with heart and grit. It’s one of those novels where you suspect where the story is going pretty much the entire time, but it still sucks you in.

Told across disparate timelines O’Shaughnessy infuses his characters and narrative with deep emotion without succumbing to coincidental contrivances or unnecessary drama. This is a story that lives and dies on the strength of O’Shaughnessy’s central characters, the chemistry between them and the relationships they build. His writing style is simple and spare whilst his ear for dialogue proves exceptional and he succeeds equally in his evocation of Gerry and Bernie’s glory days with Stanford, and Jackson’s road to success with The Colour Spectrum whilst delivering a message about what’s truly important.

On this level Hello Hammersmith isn’t so much a story of success and fortune, but a slice of life with a personal rhythm and a universal beat. It’s a novel about lost time, a celebration of music (with links to its own soundtrack) and the camaraderie that binds Jack, Hannah, Liam, and Rick into a collective friendship and a headlining band.

An exceptional and powerful novel that explores the pitfalls of the music industry and the road to success Hello Hammersmith is an unreservedly recommended Golden Quill read.