Midnight Tequila (The Tequila Chronicles)by Suzann Kale is described by the author as "The midlife crisis of a quirky, pharmaceutically-challenged harp player."  

The main character is a baby boomer widow whose main source of income is reading Tarot cards on a 900-line.  Solange Duvall is also menopausal, writes a dream journal (presumably this helps her keep her sanity) and she lives with her toothless, diabetic cat Freida May.

Solange likes to self-medicate, not only with prescription drugs but with tequila shots as well.  Hence the title of the novella.  Her harp playing has mainly been a dream, until in a somewhat uncharacteristic performance, she plays so beautifully that she's hired to become a member of a very prestigious all harp orchestra.  

Her plan of re-focusing her "real" dreams and living them doesn't last very long-she's fired from her long awaited gig, has a very serious Afterlife experience and learns the key to her survival.

Some of Kale's dream sequences involve her character's reliving her beloved late husband's sickness and death.  Others have her reliving her "little girl years", which in turn give the reader a bead up on why Solange is as dysfunctional as she is.

Written in a series of acts and scenes, Midnight Tequila is an odd, but intriguing read.  I found myself wondering things such as:  How much of this is Kale's imagination?  How much of this did she take from her real life?  Is there someone in her life that was, for the most part, Solange Duvall-mother, grandmother, friend?  And when the end came-I was wondering what was going to happen to Solange and Freida May?

For the moment, Midnight Tequila is only available on Amazon's Kindle, but it will be in regular paperback come the fall.  As for answers to my questions?  Kale said all the dreams are strictly her imagination, but that during her research she did learn to play the harp. "I was awful at it, but it gave me enough to know how the instrument felt and sounded."  Also real was the part about being a Tarot reader for a 900 number.  "I did it very briefly, I told people what they wanted to hear and I understood how to write the details.

As for more of Solange and other characters in "Midnight Tequila?Kale is planning on definitely writing 2 more novels and making it into a trilogy she'll call "The Tequila Chronicles."      

Carine Nadel is a contributing writer for Fabulously40.com. Stop by to read Carine's What's Cooking Column on our home page.