Guest Post, Mysteries

Guest Chick: Libby Klein #giveaway

Happy hump day! One of our favorite guests is visiting today, the hilarious Libby Klein. Libby’s launching a terrific new series, the Layla Virtue Mysteries. What inspired it? Think sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll! Plus, Libby is doing a giveaway for Vice and Virtue, the first book in the series…

If you’re my age, you have certain superpowers that the younger generations know nothing about. You can rewind a cassette tape with a pencil, you know the difference between a 33 and a 45, and you’ve memorized the entire dance for Michael Jackson’s Thriller. One of my superpowers is sound recognition. I can recognize 70s and 80s music and know who the singer is after just a couple of notes.

For as long as I can remember, music has been a huge part of my life. I had a radio playing next to my bed to lull me to sleep every night at seven years old. By the time I’d hit eleven, I had the radio playing the top 40 hits on a loop all day long. I’d do my homework to disco, play with Barbies to Casey Kasem’s weekly countdown, (I still remember the day I realized he was the voice of Scooby Doo – mind blown!) and I’d spend long weekends lying on the floor wearing giant headphones listening to my dad’s records of Barry Manilow, Hall and Oates, REO Speedwagon, and Chicago for hours. Hours. My father was a musician. He played keyboard in nightclubs, weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs – you name it. My favorite song to request was Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock. Probably the reason he didn’t take me to a lot of wedding reception gigs.

One of the big gift moments of my childhood came when I was allowed to buy whatever records I wanted on a shopping spree. The ones I remember choosing were ABBA’s Greatest Hits, The Carpenters, The Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever, Blondie, Linda Ronstadt, and the soundtrack to Grease. It was a strange mix, but I was like ten years old and had no idea what I was doing. If I’d known better, you can believe Journey would have been at the top of the stack. Side note: I had a math teacher who would let us listen to music while we did our seat work, and every day for an entire year we had the Journey Escape album on repeat. I know every word by heart.

Once I hit my teen years, music was a twenty-four-hour necessity. It was the eighties, and we didn’t know yet how awesome or weird the soundtrack to our generation was, but we saw the birth of MTV and it was glorious. So many mind-blowingly wonderful and awful videos. I still adore Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart. I don’t care that the video makes absolutely no sense, as soon as it starts I’m seventeen again.

I’ve funneled my love for music and my father’s life as a musician into a new series – The Layla Virtue Mysteries. Layla Virtue is trying to launch her fall-back career as a rock star about twenty years too late. She’s competing against high school garage bands who still live at home and take payment in tacos, while she’s desperately trying to survive. The lot fees for her trailer are always due, and she can only smuggle so much wedding buffet food out in her guitar case. Layla can’t afford to say no to any gig. That’s how she gets stuck playing for a seven-year old’s birthday where the party clown dies on stage. Layla is a hilarious new heroine with a zany cast of characters you will fall in love with. And I’ve even made a Spotify playlist where you can follow along with her terrible gigs. https://libbykleinbooks.com/laylas-playlist/

I’ll admit that some of the 80s music was truly awful. I personally hate 99 Luftballoons and Walking on Sunshine, but those were beloved by many. Meanwhile, what is widely considered to be the worst 80s song of all time is We Built This City by Starship and it’s one of my favorites.

Readers, I’ll give away a copy of Vice and Virtue to someone who can tell me a song from their generation that everyone else loves, but they can’t stand it.

ABOUT: Libby Klein writes ridiculously funny murder mysteries from her Northern Virginia office with a very naughty calico Persian named Miss Eliza Doolittle, and a sweet black Lab named Vader. She can name that tune for 70s and 80s rock in the first few notes, and she’s translated her love of classic rock into her Layla Virtue Mysteries. Libby was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents her from eating gluten without exploding. Because bread is one of her love languages, she includes the recipes for gluten free goodies in her Cape May based Poppy McAllister series. Most of her hobbies revolve around travel, and eating, and eating while traveling. She insists she can find her way to any coffee shop anywhere in the world, even while blindfolded. Follow all of her nonsense on her website libbykleinbooks.com.

SYNOPSIS: Layla Virtue, a blue-haired, 30-something recovering alcoholic and former cop is trying to reinvent herself as a musician—between AA meetings, dodging eccentric neighbors at her trailer park, and reconnecting with her mysterious dad—in this ​unforgettable new mystery brimming with hilarity and heart for readers of Margot Douaihy, Jane Pek, and Darynda Jones.

Layla is taking her new life one day at a time from the Lake Pinecrest Trailer Park she now calls home. Being alone is how she likes it. Simple. Uncomplicated. Though try telling that to the group of local ladies who are in relentless pursuit of Layla as their new BFF, determined to make her join them for coffee and donuts. Meanwhile, since her first career ended in a literal explosion, Layla’s trying to eke out a living as a rock musician. It’s not easy competing against garage bands who work for tacos and create their music on a computer, while all she has is an electric guitar and leather-ish pants. But Layla isn’t in a position to turn down any gig. Which is why she’s at an 8-year-old’s birthday party, watching as Chuckles the Clown takes a bow under the balloon animals. No one expects it will be his last . . .Who would want to kill a clown—and why? Layla and her unshakable posse are suddenly embroiled in the seedy underbelly of the upper-class world of second wives and trust fund kids, determined to uncover what magnetic hold a pudgy, balding clown had over women who seem to have everything they could ever want. Then again, Layla knows full well that people are rarely quite what they seem—herself included . . .

BUY LINK

61 thoughts on “Guest Chick: Libby Klein #giveaway”

  2. This post took me back to my childhood as well. It hard to think of a song I liked that others hate. I guess the closest one is “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. I sent it to my husband while he was at work and he said I rickroll him. He tried to explain the prank/meme but I just liked the song. Now it a internet joke? I guess if anything everyone knows the song so I guess that a plus for the artist!

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  3. “Young Girl” sung by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. Back in 1968 I thought the song was cool (I was 12 when it first started playing on the radio). By the time I was in high school (a couple years later), I cringed every time I heard it. If you haven’t heard this song, don’t try to find it – it’s pretty much a Lolita thing: much younger girl trying to hit on an older guy from the man’s point of view.

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    1. Yes! I agree. It is totally cringey. A lot of songs sound so good when we’re too young to understand them. Then we get some years behind us and we’re like – eww.

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  4. Libby, the soundtrack to your teen years sounds a lot like mine. Personally, I love both “Walkin’ on Sunshine” AND “We Built This City.” But I can’t think of something I love that everyone hates. Of course, someone will mention a song and I’ll be all “Oh, I love that!” LOL

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  5. Congratulations on the new book baby, Libby! “Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners has always driven me up the wall. Man, it seemed it was MTV every fifteen minutes. REO’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” is pretty awful in my book, too. Especially from a band that gave us “Roll With the Changes,” “157 Riverside Avenue,” and so many more great rockers.

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    1. I remember a funny show called Carpoolers where they called OnStar to ask what the words to Come on Eileen were. I think the secret to being on MTV back then was having a music video ready to go.

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  6. This song was from the 90’s. I think the song title was “The Next to be With You”. It isn’t that I hate that song, but when our daughter was in high school and she and her boyfriend broke up, she played that song over and over and over, while in her room with her poor broken heart. My husband and I could sing every word. Still, 30 years later we can still sing “Let me be the next to be with you….”

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  7. I had a comment all typed out, and then it couldn’t post due to not being first logged in. So, lets try that again shall we…I love this post, as I was brought back to 98.1 KUDL with Delilah, or the Top 40 countdown. Oh the days of trying to time the songs just right on the radio to capture them on cassette! I don’t care much for high pitched screaming from some 80’s bands, but that’s just me. I love classic country, oldies, country, rock, pop, rap, hip-hop, techno, dance, and so on. Loved Celine Dion as a teen, and am obsessed with Kelly Clarkson ever since American Idol! You might hear Patsy Cline playing at my house, followed by the Backstreet Boys, lol. Thank you for taking me down music lane! I need to get my IPOD out now, and dance around. And yep, I still use one of those, lol!

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  8. Hotel California for me. I know it’s a guitarist’s dream, but it goes on forever and repeats incessantly in my head. Usually love the Eagles. but this one gets a big NO from me! Congrats on the new series. Looking forward to reading it.

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  9. Lisby, so excited for you!! BTW, I STILL listen to American Top 40. I’m always bringing new songs to my dance instructors – and I’m always the oldest person in the class.

    I’ll give you a whole group other people adore that I’m famous – or infamous – for loathing: Steely Dan. Their popular songs are like nails on a chalkboard to me.

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  10. Okay, so maybe this one came out when I was too young to appreciate it, but it has bugged me for decades: Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin. I hate it so much, and everyone around me goes crazy when they hear the opening bars. Deliver me. But Libby, love this fun post and huge congrats on your awesome new book. Great seeing you in Bethesda, too. (Oh, and my other most disfavorite: Brick House. Banned from my wedding.)

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    1. Well, I will say that the opening bars to Immigrant Song are very recognizable – like the opening riff to Smoke on the Water. Or Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Bruce Springsteen (for you Silent Nights Are Murder fans.) I would also have banned Every Breath You Take for it’s creeper vibes.

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  11. I am today years old when I found out Casey Kasem was the voice of Scooby-Doo and I think my brain might explode right now. We still listen to the countdown on Sirius radio whenever we’re driving on the weekends. “Hot Child In the City” by Nick Gilder is that cringe song for me. My husband can’t stand anything by Queen and always flips the radio station when anything by them comes on. Congrats on your new book, Libby! It sounds fantastic. I’ll definitely be adding it to my pile!

    -Paula Charles

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    2. “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars”, thank you Casey Kasem. He had the smoothest voice. Didn’t he do the voiceover for a Chevrolet commercial?

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  12. Hurrah for your new series, Libby! I feel like your superpower would have you winning a ton of contests!

    I’m not sure I can pinpoint a song that I hated but everyone else loved. Though, like Lisa, I’m not a fan of Brick House. Genre-wise, I also tend to shy away from heavy metal.

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  13. Congrats on your new release, Libby!

    I was a child of the 80’s. I listened to Pop and hair bands and some metal. I was addicted to MTV, and could sing the lyrics to all of the songs they played. I don’t know that I had a song I didn’t like, but everyone else did. Maybe…True by Spandau Ballet. It just got annoying because of overplaying. I lived Casey’s Top 40. And did you ever watch American Bandstand? Loved that show so much!!!

    I did know Casey Kasem was the voice of Shaggy…which I always thought was so cool.

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  14. This Boomer grew up with the British Invasion, Motown, and–thanks to my parents–Frank, Ella, and Mel (Tormé). Then in my early twenties I became obsessed with New Wave music and listened to Elvis Costello and Talking Heads 24-7, and even fronted my own band as singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist.

    So excited to read this new series, Libby! Congrats and YAY!

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  16. We share a superpower — although it sounds like you’re even better at it than I am! My husband likes to challenge me when we’re in the car… And sometimes I can’t believe the things that are lurking deep in my subconscious! Like the name and artist of a song that I forgot existed for the last 30 years. Congratulations on your new series! It sounds like a winner.

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    1. My husband does the exact same thing! He tries, but he is no match for me. Then we watch TV and he recognizes people from shows we haven’t seen in years. I have to hear them talk first. Thank you!

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  17. AARGH, my comment went Poof when I tried to login to WordPress.

    Trying again.

    Copacabana by Barry Manilow OR

    Super Trouper by ABBA

    I listened to those songs (& records) so many times as a teenager.

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  18. Congratulations, Libby! Can’t wait to read this new series.

    And I was nodding my head throughout this whole post–this is the music of my era too. Wish I’d known you then and we could have fangirled out together.

    For a song that made me change the station: “Blinded by the Light” (sorry)

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      1. I was a big Neil Diamond fan since the 1960s, saw him in concert in Hawai’i in the mid-1970s. I still like his songs today …

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  20. I grew up with lots of music in my house. My father and mother used to dance to the Big Bands. Daddy, when he had extra money, bought good stereo equipment–quadraphonics. He also had 8 track tapes, records, reel to reel tapes, cassettes and so on. He would have loved the computer and the music we now have but alas, he passed in 1982. He even had a Zenith TV that had a phone in it. I still have all of his 8 tracks and the 8-track car player and a multi 8 track player. I had to sell all of his 78s (except the ones that I kept) to a man that had a 78 victrola and all of his LPS as it was over 1100 miles to where we lived and I was afraid they would melt). But this is off that subject (as I loved to like all kinds of music and he also was a theatre manager, so show tunes were part of my life). Recently, my husband informed me that his favorite song when we were dating back in the 1960s was “Black Slacks” by The Sparkletones. I never knew that until this year 2025. He makes me ask Alexa to play it nightly. You should play it and see. It is not my favorite thing and now I have to suffer through it and his dancing to it. Ha! You always learn new things after so many years. We have been together since 1964 and our first date.

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      1. First date was on Feb. 29, 1964, when I was a sophomore in HS and he was a junior. We went to the drive-in with another couple to see “Eegah” and “Valley of the Suns.” I was 14. We dated and broke up and dated etc. all through HS. He went to Vietnam Nov. 1968 returning in Jan. 1970. We were dating just each other then. We dated 6 years, got engaged when he got back and were engaged 13 years. Now we have been married for 42 years this August (1983). Amazing to me! Thank you all for the comments.

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  21. I can’t think of a song that I loved but everyone hated. I can think of a song that was often played at dance parties that I couldn’t get into. That was Brick House by The Commodores. Never could get into that one.

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