Title: Encore
Series:
Matchmakers
Author:
Bernadette Marie
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Publisher: 5
Prince Books
Formats Available
In: All eBook formats & Print
Release Date: June
13, 2013
Digital: ISBN
13:978-1-939217-58-5 ISBN 10:1-939217-58-X
Print:
ISBN 13:978-1-939217-57-8 ISBN 10:1-939217-57-1
Blurb: Newly
unemployed concert pianist, Thomas Samuel has spent most of his adult
life escaping his upbringing. He’s become an expert at hiding his
feelings and remaining professional. But when he meets cellist
Carissa Kendal he’s faced with one emotion he can’t escape—love.
Carissa hadn’t
expected her mother to take on the art of matchmaking and she was
convinced she wasn’t very good at it. Strong minded Carissa had her
work cut out for her with the emotionally scarred Thomas, but love
always wins in the end—or does it?
By the time Thomas
realizes his past does not define the man he has become it might be
too late. Big venues and scenic places might just win over the heart
of Carissa and take her away from him—unless he hurries and faces
the man who ruined his career and convince Carissa that every
performance, even love, deserves an encore.
Excerpt:
Chapter One
Her young student
pulled the bow across the strings of the violin, and the sound was
pure evil. Carissa Kendal winced, then quickly smiled. She’d get it
in time. Eventually, they all got it if they stuck around.
The dropout rate of
students was the one dark cloud over her next venture, the Kendal
School of Music. It had been her dream to teach music in her own
school, and she was about to dive into it. She’d hoped her mother
would want to be by her side more, but Sophia still had Hope to
raise. Carissa had accepted that, but to have her mother call up an
old friend to help her wasn’t settling.
Did Sophia not think
she’d look him up? That she wouldn’t find out who he was?
At the moment, he was
nobody. Every musical endeavor he’d pursued in the eight years
since the renowned tenor Pablo DiAngelo’s ensemble broke up had
failed spectacularly.
Why was Sophia soft on
him? Her mother’s name carried far more influence than that of the
failed pianist, and it would have given Carissa’s music school all
the prestige it needed.
The student pulled
another evil note and snapped Carissa from her thoughts.
“I’m never going to
get this,” the young girl complained with her nose wrinkled.
“You will. If you
want to, you’ll get it.” She smiled encouragingly, remembering
when she’d been that young girl. “You need to remember to
practice the material I give you.” Carissa raised her eyebrows with
the subtle demand.
“Okay. I promise I’ll
be better next time.”
“And if you practice,
that will always be the case.”
As her student gathered
her instrument, Carissa marked off her lesson sheet and handed it to
her.
They left the study of
the old boardinghouse, where Carissa lived with her grandmother, and
stood by the door as her student’s mother walked toward them.
Carissa gave the girl a squeeze on her shoulder.
“She’s doing
wonderfully. A little extra practice each day will help,” she said.
“Don’t forget your peppermint on your way out the door.”
The young girl fished
in the bowl for the right piece of candy as Carissa opened the front
door. The violinist’s mother handed Carissa a check for the lesson.
“Thank you, Carissa.
She enjoys her lessons very much.”
“I’m pleased to
hear that. We’ll see you both next week.”
As the woman and her
daughter descended the front steps, a man paid a cab on the street in
front of the old house. He stood with his suitcase in his hand and
looked her way.
He was tall and too
thin for her taste, but he looked almost regal in the way he carried
himself. He removed his sunglasses and stroked the wisps of dirty
blond hair from his eyes. She almost didn’t recognize the man from
the pictures she’d seen on the Internet.
He looked like a blond
Jimmy Stewart, and her stomach did a little flip.
“Hello,” he called
as he neared the house. She smiled despite her misgivings. He even
walked like Jimmy Stewart.
Like most of Pablo’s
ensemble, he’d always walked behind the man with the million-dollar
smile, never next to or in front of him, not like her mother who had
been paraded on Pablo’s arm. It was no wonder she hadn’t
recognized him.
She extended her hand
to him, and as his fingers enclosed hers, she gulped in air. He was
strikingly handsome. She hadn’t expected that.
To have played for
Pablo, as Sophia had, Thomas had to be tremendously talented. Yet
would the curse that hung over his career affect her music school?
“You must be Thomas
Samuel. I’m Sophia’s daughter, Carissa Kendal. I’ve heard a lot
about you.”
When Sophia Kendal had
said her daughter would meet him at the boardinghouse in Kansas City,
he hadn’t expected she’d look like the woman standing before him.
The woman before him stood erect as a dancer. Her hair fell to the
middle of her back like an ebony waterfall, and her dark eyes were
soft. She wore a flowing, orange blouse and a long skirt of the same
orange, mixed with earthy browns that swirled around her calves when
she moved.
She was mesmerizing.
“Please come in.”
She stepped back through the door. Heat rose on the back of his neck
as he passed by her. “My mother says you’ll be staying with us
until you get settled.”
“Uh. Yes.” He felt
like his tongue had swollen. “I’m sorry if I seem out of sorts. I
knew Sophia for so long that to think of her as your mother, well,
that’s a stretch for me.”
Carissa smiled at him
again. “I was seventeen before she adopted me, so I can understand.
I’m sorry you couldn’t make it out for their wedding.”
“Yes, so am I.” Had
he made that wedding, he’d have made it his business to become more
familiar with the dark beauty who, with the most subtle gesture of
tucking her hair behind her ear, had his pulse climbing.
Guilt halted his
thoughts. He should have been at the wedding because he’d promised
Sophia he would be. It was just another broken promise, and he feared
he would let her down again. And given his past, he had no business
fantasizing about Carissa—or any woman. It could end only in
heartache—or worse.
About
Bernadette Marie:
Bernadette
Marie has been an avid writer since the early age of 13, when she’d
fill notebook after notebook with stories that she’d share with her
friends. Her journey into novel writing started the summer
before eighth grade when her father gave her an old typewriter.
At all times of the day and night you would find her on the back
porch penning her first work, which she would continue to write for
the next 22 years.
In 2007 –
after marriage, filling her chronic entrepreneurial needs, and having
five children – Bernadette began to write seriously with the goal
of being published. That year she wrote 12 books. In 2009
she was contracted for her first trilogy and the published
author was born. In 2011 she (being the entrepreneur that she
is) opened her own publishing house, 5 Prince Publishing, and has
released contemporary titles and began the process of taking on other
authors in other genres.
In 2012
Bernadette Marie found herself on the bestsellers lists of iTunes and
Amazon to name a few. Her office wall is lined with colorful
PostIt notes with the titles of books she will be releasing in the
very near future, with hope that they too will grace the bestsellers
lists.
Bernadette
spends most of her free time driving her kids to their many events.
She is also an accomplished martial artist who will earn her
conditional second degree black belt in Tang Soo Do in October 2012.
An avid reader, she enjoys most, the works of Nora Roberts, Karen
White, Megan Hart, to name a few. She loves to meet readers who enjoy
reading contemporary romances and she always promises Happily Ever
After.
Author
Contact Info:
