Elvis – Diary of a King by Steven Donahue

Elvis – Diary of a King by Steven Donahue
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Elvis is back!

The King of Rock and Roll returns in this speculative novel about the life of Elvis Presley after faking his death in 1977.

Told in a diary form, Elvis recalls the events in his “new” life after relocating to a small Pennsylvania town as part of a Witness Protection Program. Taking the name Jessie Palmer, the music legend settles into a quiet life and befriends 10-year-old Luke Rickter and his family, who live across the street from him. However, that tranquility is tested when Luke’s teenage sister goes missing, and Jessie is pulled into the investigation.

Jessie and the local police department try to solve the mystery of the missing girl and bring those responsible to justice. Along the way, Jessie tries to fit in with his new community, while adjusting to life outside of the spotlight. Jessie copes with the loss of his family and friends, and the challenges of being an outsider in a small town. He also struggles to keep his true identity a secret. If the wrong people found out he was still alive, it would jeopardize the safety of those he loves.

It’s never too late to have a second chance in life.

This genuinely felt like something set in the 1970s, from the prejudice that certain characters unfortunately had to deal with to the social mores of the time that Elvis had a wide variety of opinions about. Some of my favorite scenes were the ones that showed how this character’s early life experiences shaped the man he had become in both positive and negative ways. He was not a perfect person by any means, but he was a genuinely good individual who was doing his best to atone for past mistakes and treat others with the kindness and respect his mother always expected from him.

I would have loved to see more character development, particularly when it came to the main characters. It would be difficult for me to describe who they were as people because the narrator didn’t really go into detail on that subject. As interested as I was in the premise itself, there simply wasn’t as much attention paid to exploring the personalities and growth of the characters as I needed in order to feel comfortable giving this a higher rating.

The speculative and mystery genres were blended beautifully together here. While the latter definitely played a much larger role in the plot, they were both important in order to understand how Elvis Presley survived his final days as a famous musician before the first chapter of this book began. I can’t go into detail about that without sharing spoilers, but I will say that it was satisfying to slowly learn more and more about why Elvis made the transition from being a famous musician to living a quiet life in obscurity and what he did with his time after that.

Elvis – Diary of a King was creative.