There are 14 days until Blue Note‘s release! I’m so excited for the book to come out. I love reading it, even if I’m *OVER* edits.

Also… at the end of Blue Note you’ll get to see our NEXT book’s title. That’s right – The Fractured Prism BOOK TWO! I know waiting can be hard, but you won’t have to wait that long – Book Two releases December 21st, 2019.

Speaking of…I should get back to writing that… along with another book coming this fall (if I can nail the beginning). Maybe I’ll release the title of that one next week. Check back? Meanwhile, here’s another taste of Blue Note.

Chapter 3

The door closed behind Hattie.

His mom stood there, elegant as ever, and cast her gaze on him. “When you decide to break that girl’s heart, please do so gently.”

Niels finished the plate of food Hattie had made him and rinsed it in the sink. “You know, I really appreciate you advocating for her. I don’t think she has much of a support network.”

His friend Li, one of his bandmates, had the most supportive parents in Danish history. When Niels told his mom that the band had a contract with a music label and was moving to New York, she’d laughed and then said, “Oh, you’re serious. If I’d known people would pay to hear that noise, I would have held sessions for neighbors to listen to you all practice.”
When Li told her parents, they paid the airfare for everyone in the band and gave them a big send off, and arranged for a realtor to contact them as soon as they arrived in New York.

It had always felt like his mom was just waiting for him to fail. And now she was waiting for him to fail at Hattie too. It was his mess, not hers.

He scowled.

“When are your friends coming?” she asked.

He shrugged. Since she liked Hattie so much, maybe she’d respond to him better if he acted like her. “When they get here.”

He was being an enormous asshole and he knew it. But he’d been here years and this was only her second visit, and all she wanted to talk about was everything he was doing wrong.

There were plenty of places in this city that thrived on criticism from the most refined. His apartment was not one of them.

Hattie came back in again, thank Christ. She didn’t knock, which made his mom smile, but she walked right up to Niels and handed him a wrapped gift. It was something small. “I present…your present,” she said.

“In the present,” he pointed out.

She grinned. “Presently.”

“Is that when you’re finally going to open your present?” he asked. He nodded toward her gift which still lay on the counter, unopened.

Her eyes followed his and she looked at the box that contained the violin. “Yes,” she said. Final-fucking-ly.

She opened it painstaking in her pace. She was probably preserving the paper for posterity, or for a museum to put on display in forty years with a little card that read Hattie Bordelon was here.

When she finally clicked the violin case open, her mouth gaped. “This. Niels.” She looked up at him. “Oh my god. This is amazing.”

It wasn’t a Stradivarius or anything, just a Pedrazzini. He felt his skin flushing with red, mostly because his mom was there. Or maybe because he hadn’t expected this level of enthusiasm from Hattie. “I didn’t want you to forget your music,” he said.

She hugged him, and it felt so right.

“It’s amazing,” she whispered. She stepped back. “Now my gift seems lame.”

“Really?” He set the little package on the kitchen bar. “I guess I don’t want it then.”

Hattie laughed and grabbed the present again, shoving it towards him. “Open it,” she commanded.

He did; much more efficiently than she’d opened hers. Pieces of wrapping paper scattered to the floor in a deliberate way, but of course his mom picked them up as soon as they landed.

He sighed back his annoyance and focused on the gift: It was built like an old-fashioned mix tape, but it had a fold-out port to connect to a computer.

“It’s a song,” she said, shyly.

It was perfect. He bet he was going to listen to this way too much. “And here I was worried you’ve been neglecting your music.”

“I’m keeping the violin,” she challenged.

“Ja? Maybe I should play this tape for my mom, then.”

“If you want to scare her away…”

He wanted to hear the damn song. “Can you stick around after everyone leaves? Or do you want me to listen alone?”

She grimaced. “Save it?”

Only until tonight, whenever his mom finally went to bed.

You can currently reserve your copy with Amazon (paperback or kindle), Barnes & Noble (paperback), or Kobo (ebook). You can also swing by Booksprout and get a free ARC copy and read Blue Note today!