April Melody - Katie Mettner/Tempting Thursday

Kindle

New Adult Romance

April Melody once had a fledgling music career, only to have it come crashing down around her ears, literally. Suddenly deaf, April learned how to read lips and saw the lies people tried to hide. Martin Crow owns Crow's Hair and Nails, an upscale salon in the middle of tiny Snowberry. When his dreams of being a musician were ripped away he turned to his other true love, helping women find their inner beauty. He just wasn't expecting to find one of Snowberry’s most beautiful standing outside his apartment door. Drawn together by their love of music they are kept apart by their hearts of stone. April and Crow know that guilt will steal their future, unless they learn how to let love and forgiveness be the melody and harmony in their lives.

A Word from the Author

April Melody is a book I was challenged to write by my daughter. When I was writing Noel's Hart, which is the book you first meet April in, I was talking to her about who I wanted April's love interest to be. I was already feeling that the hair stylist who helps fix Savannah's hair might be the one. I didn't have a name for him though, so we were bouncing names around that night. She came up with 'Martin Crow' and everyone just calls him Crow. I was intrigued and encouraged her to tell me more. She decided she would create the character and hand him to me to write. This was definitely going to be challenging. How do you write a main character that you don't 'own'? I rose to the challenge though and when she handed me the specs on him I wasn't surprised to see that he was pansexual. 

What does pansexual mean? It means being gender blind, i.e. just seeing people not seeing men or women, boys or girls. My daughter identifies as pansexual and I've learned a lot over the years about what this means. So there I sat with a character I was meeting for the first time. I had to somehow figure out his past and his future because all I had was his present. I knew he had sandy brown hair that flipped over his forehead and was tipped purple. He loved fashion, always wore a scarf, loved Doc Martins and was short. He was a musician in the past, but isn't any longer (she told me I had to figure out why) and he was going to fall madly, truly and deeply in love with April (she also left the how up to me to decide). Didn't seem like a lot to go on, right? I needed a muse, so I did a search through some stock photo sites. The picture below is what I found after searching for just a few moments.

It couldn't get more spot on, right? So, I finished Noel's Hart and took the story I had started for April in that book and began the rest of her journey. Sounds easy, right? It wasn't though. There were lots of times where I felt I wasn't doing these characters justice. There were lots of times when I found writing in first person point of view when the female character is deaf was almost impossible. There were times when the confusion of signing and singing had me laying on the floor laughing because what else could I do? In the end, when I wrote the last line of the book I felt like I had successfully written a story about a deaf woman who falls in love with a man who didn't want to fall in love with anyone. I wrote a story about a man who needed to learn how to forgive the people in his past who hurt him, so that he could find room for April in his heart. I accomplished through actions, rather than words, that when we feel God has taken away everything we love, He hasn't, He's giving us room to grow and change and become the person we were meant to be. Crow learns that he had to clear his heart of hate in order to fill it with the things he loved again. Once he did, he figured out a way to sing again. I will leave it at that because the adventure is always about reading the story and taking away from it the things you most need to hear. As April's dad Nate discovers, "Life happens. It's how we react to what happens that shows our true character."

First thoughts after...

I'm going to go crazy waiting for Liberty and Bram's story!

How distracted did I get?

From the preview at the end of Noel's Hart I was ready to jump into April and Crow's story.  Their meet cute was adorable and awkward I wanted more instantly.  April is sweet, hard working,  and strong.  It takes a lot of inner strength to get through the trials she's had in her life and come out with a positive outlook.  Crow, wow, he had me listing him as a book boyfriend before the book came out just from the preview.  He is kind and delightfully refreshing.  As he says "a square peg in a round hole." The chemistry and friendship between April and Crow is addictive and fun. April Melody is a wonderful story of forgiveness, strength and love. A love that endures, hopes and is true between two captivating characters.

I give April Melody...

5baskets!