title: The Blues Ain't Nothin': Tales of the Lonesome Blues Pub
author:  Tina L. Jens 
description: "A warm and delightfully entertaining novel." --Realms of Fantasy Magazine<br /><br />"Tina Jens knows her riffs. [She] deftly provides enough information along the way to bring readers with little blues-knowledge up to snuff while not bogging her text down for those more in tune with her subject. With high appeal for female readers. Refreshing, appealing, and a whole lot of fun." --Dark Echo Magazine<br /><br />"Perhaps as no other form of music, the blues goes hand-in-hand with the horrific. It's not just...the legends of musicians who supposedly sold their souls at a crossroads in order to play, but the hard-scuffling and sometimes violent and short lives of the bluesfolk themselves. "The setting here is almost as restricted as that of a one-act play. Jens relies on the world of the living and the dead to mosey in through the doors. In other words, "If you build it, they will come ... and they'll probably be bringing raunchy guitars." Spanning nearly twenty years, the novel's through-point is Sally, the daughter of Miss Sarah, original owner of the Lonesome Blues Pub on Chicago's North Side... We see her evolve from ten-year-old Little Mustang into the full-grown Mustang Sally, destined to not only run the club her mother founded, but play the blues herself. Like her creator, Sally may be a white girl with blond hair, but it's a wholly credible transformation, which is punctuated by all sorts of run-ins with the staples of blues lore: ghosts, hellhounds, devils in long frock coats, and plenty of lowdown, sweet-talking, two-timing men. By the turn of the century, Sally has become extremely adroit at handling them all. Truth be told, the supernatural elements, while abundant, are generally handled with a very light touch. Weightier are the strictly human elements: the growing estrangement between mother and daughter, the racial tensions of white people involved with black music, and the surprisingly touching and heartbreaking portrayal of a harmonica player beset by the brain damage deliberately inflicted on him as a child. There's plenty of warmth, too, in the surrogate family that's come together to raise and mentor the fatherless Mustang Sally, from the elderly retired bluesmen Old George and Ratman, to the friendly resident ghost Jayhawk, to the spirits of such dead legends as Memphis Minnie and Robert Johnson, who stop by to lend a transparent hand when needed. On --HellNotes Book Review
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  ![](cover.png)  
    
    
    
  **Mystic River**  
    
   **Dennis Lehane**  
    
  ![](logo.png)  
    
    
    
    
    
    
   _ **For my wife, Sheila**_  
  
    
    
  
  [He] did not understand women. It wasn't the way bartenders or comedians
  didn't understand women, it was the way poor people didn't understand the
  economy. You could stand outside the Girard Bank Building every day of your
  life and never guess anything about what went on in there. That's why, in
  their hearts, they'd always rather stick up a 7-Eleven.  
  
   Pete Dexter, _God's Pocket_  
    
  
  There is no street with mute stones and no house without echoes.  
  
   Góngora  
  
    
    
  
   **CONTENTS**  
    
   **EPIGRAPH**  
    
   ******I**  
   **THE BOYS WHO ESCAPED FROM WOLVES: (1975)**  
    
   ******1**  
   **THE POINT AND THE FLATS**  
    
   ******2**  
   **FOUR DAYS**  
    
   ******II**  
   **SAD-EYED SINATRAS: (2000)**  
    
   ******3**  
   **TEARS IN HER HAIR**  
    
   ******4**  
   **DON'T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE**  
    
   ******5**  
   **ORANGE CURTAINS**  
    
   ******