For the last few Six Sundays I’ve been quoting my current WIP, Surrender, but there’s been renewed interest in my first MS, Want (thanks to #sixsunday)!

In this scene, our MC is playing Rachmaninoff for her new, handsome, impossible-to-please piano teacher:

I begin the Etude-Tableau no. 2 in C. It’s a relatively quiet piece, but technically difficult. For the next few minutes I’m lost. I will my left hand to do what it’s supposed to. When I finish, I hear the clock tick like a metronome. I sing a little ditty in my head, “Tick tock, goes the clock. Tick tock, tick tock …” and I wait for his judgment like a gladiator in the ring, wondering if my performance gets me a thumbs up or down; live or die; mercy or none.

Here’s the synopsis for the book:

Julianne counts the days until she can pack her bags and leave her old-money, tradition-bound Southern town where appearance is everything and secrecy is a way of life. A piano virtuoso, she dreams of attending a prestigious music school in Boston. Failure is not an option, so she enlists the help of New England Conservatory graduate Isaac Laroche to help her.

She can’t understand why he suddenly gave up Boston’s music scene to return to the South. He doesn’t know her life depends on escaping it and the madness that threatens her success. Isaac must resist a taboo attraction, but an indiscretion at a Mardi Gras ball—the pinnacle event for Mobile’s elite—forces their present wants and needs to collide with sins of the past.

Uh-oh. 🙂

See the other #sixsunday participants here.