Sawyer has to make a tough decision about what it means to follow her heart.
Victoria “Vix” Vincent has only two weeks to find a replacement fiddle player for her band’s summer tour. When classically trained violinist Sawyer Bell shows up for an audition, Vix is thrilled. Sawyer is talented, gorgeous, funny, and excited about playing indie rock instead of Beethoven. Their friendship soon blossoms into romance, even though Vix tries to remember that Sawyer’s presence is only temporary.
Sawyer’s parents think she’s spending the summer months touring Europe with a chamber ensemble. But Sawyer is in dire need of a break from the competitiveness of Juilliard, and desperately wants to rediscover her love of music. Going on tour with her secret high school crush is just an added bonus. Especially when Vix kisses her one night after a show, and they discover that the stage isn’t the only place they have chemistry.
But the tour won’t last forever, and as the summer winds down, Sawyer has to make a tough decision about her future—and what it means to follow her heart.
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Excerpt...
Vix chewed on a pen, placating the pounding headache behind her eyes with whispered promises of imminent Advil and caffeine. Her headache was work related, which was nothing out of the ordinary, but this time it wasn’t a result of singing too much or smoking too many cigarettes. It wasn’t even the unhappy consequence of too much vodka or late-night partying.
It was all Bryant’s fault.
Bryant Davenport, their fiddle player, had decided to get married a few months after Victoria Vincent’s spring tour. Which, okay, fine—Vix sang at his wedding and everything—cool, she liked romantic, happy endings as much as the next person. Then, Bryant and his new husband, Aaron, decided they had to be parents, and while they’d expected adoption to take forever . . . apparently not, because they’d received their little bundle of joy quite unexpectedly a few weeks ago. Vix was back in her hometown of Germantown, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis full of mostly boring people, with a little less than two weeks left to find a replacement.
But the kicker, the real problem, and the reason she needed coffee and over-the-counter pain relievers? Everyone who’d auditioned so far sucked.
“I’m guessing that guy bought that violin off Craigslist a week ago,” Jeff said with a frown. He rubbed at his own temples. “And was taking lessons off YouTube.”
“No way. Any lessons would have sounded better than that,” said Connor.
“What about the . . .” Jeff flipped through a set of papers he was holding, “the second guy?”
“Nope.” That emphatic pronouncement came from Kit. “Veto.”
“He didn’t sound like he was scalding a cat,” Jeff reminded him. “At this point, that’s a strong mark in the pro column.”
“There were things moving in his beard, dude.” Kit shuddered. “Lots of them. And that is a strong mark in the concolumn. Twice. I’m not spending months in a van with a guy who brought his own parasites.”
Vix sighed and propped her feet up on the tattered ottoman in Jeff’s basement. It was his parents’ house, but they’d left for the Upper Peninsula in Michigan a few days earlier to escape the oncoming Tennessee summer. Since Vix and Jeff had been playing music in the Townleys’ basement since Vix was in high school, it was nice to have a familiar base of operations to conduct their auditions. On the other hand, it made her feel like a teenager again.
She pushed her hand through her hair and groaned. “Guys, this isn’t good.”
It wasn’t. Whoever they found to take Bryant’s place still needed to learn all the music, and time was dwindling with every terrible audition. Vix hated the idea of going on tour without a fiddle player, but it was looking like she wasn’t going to have much of a choice. She’d rather miss that component than have someone butcher the music on stage. Why was finding a fiddle player in the South so hard? She knew there were a lot of ridiculous stereotypes about her home region, but for fuck’s sake, it was the fiddle. They should be a dime a dozen, shouldn’t they?
“I mean, Bryant can bring a baby on tour, can’t he?” Connor twirled a drumstick in his fingers. The drum set that accompanied the sticks was in the garage, as none of the prospective fiddle players who’d auditioned thus far had progressed to the let’s see how you sound when you play with us stage. “They’re, like, real small.”
“No, are you stupid?” Kit scowled at him. “We barely have room in that van for us, let alone Bryant, Aaron, and the baby. Besides, man. A baby.”
“I’m surprised no one went for the obvious joke of how we already have a baby in the van.” Jeff grinned over at Vix. He winked.
Vix ignored him. At twenty-five, she was technically the youngest person in the band. Even if it was her the band was named after, though she’d been “Vix” to everyone but her parents since the second grade. “Kit’s the newest member,” she pointed out. “So technically, in seniority terms, it’s him.”
“I’ve been here for two years!” Kit protested.
There was a knock at the door that startled them all. Their next audition was here, and Vix’s headache was only going to get worse.
Jeff hollered, “Come on in,” and Vix readied herself to be disappointed yet again. Jesus, she wanted a Coke Zero. Water sucked and had all the flavor of . . . well, water. Ew.
There's more! Read the entire excerpt, learn more about the book, series or Author by visiting Riptide Publishing.
Avon grew up in the southern United States, and now lives with her very patient husband in a liberal Midwestern college town. When she’s not writing, she’s either doing some kind of craft project that makes a huge mess, reading, watching horror movies, listening to music or yelling at her favorite hockey team to get it together, already. Avon is always up for a road trip, adores Kentucky bourbon, thinks nothing is as stress relieving as a good rock concert, and will never say no to candy.
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TWO chances to win!
Riptide giveaway... To celebrate this release, one lucky winner will receive a signed paperback copy of The Love Song of Sawyer Bell! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 30, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!
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loved the excerpt today
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Congrats on the release. My niece actually play the violin/fiddle for an alt rock band. So I could get into this one. - Purple Reader,
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