Her mother Andrée, a Beaux Arts Graduate, frequented the postwar Paris avant-garde art scene with her photographer brother Robert Déscharnes where she met Alfred Russell, then a rising star abstract expressionist painter, soon married him and had Elsie. I'm sure some of you guys recognized my crazy graphics!Įlsie Russell's bohemian upbringing with artist parents in Europe and the states provided much of the material for this novel.

And then Ulla's charming and damaged young choreographer appears, and sweeps Penny off to Europe to search for the diva, plunging Penny into a seedy and unfamiliar world of jet set artists and international intrigue.Īnd I designed the cover. Her neighbor, the ethereal erotic performance artist Ulla Nova, disappears after her studio is broken into. But a series of strange coincidences intrude upon her solitary quest. There, using herself as a guinea pig, she sets out to unlock the secrets of her beautiful and deadly symphonies. The once-bright horizons of Penny's career collapse, and she retreats to a dank Soho basement apartment lit only by the glow of computer monitors and electronic synthesizer displays. The debut of Penny Bell's's groundbreaking musical composition-featuring the use of mysterious extremely low frequency waves-takes a startling and tragic turn when several concert-goers die in their seats during the performance. I've read it 10 times now and I couldn't put it down every time I read it. After reading several articles about this new download literature environment, and one in particular by Neil Gaiman we decided to give it away for free, with the front cover and hope people like it enough to buy it. If you like the book, you can buy it at and in about 6 weeks at Amazon. It'll be available on Amazon shortly I hope they add the reviews so far as they're all cool. Here are the reviews from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award listing. In Over Her Head - Free Download Plus Front Cover Then when they are published if they don't sell like crazy, they're taken off the market and the author loses rights to have them re-published. It's just damn near impossible for first novel's to be published now and when it is - they receive no promotion.

It's gotten great reviews from Publisher's Weekly and was a Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semi-finalist, but we've gotten frustrated getting it published. Seven years in the making, Elsie Russell, my spouse, started writing the book right after 9/11 and is her first novel. In Over Her Head, a cyber-thriller/romance is now available for free download.

In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell