About
the Book
Title: Notes of Temptation
Author:
Rebecca Halsey
Genre:
Historical Romance
Hollywood Jazz,
Book 1
When Carrie Cooper
leaves her small gold-mining town to seek her fortune, it’s not
until she arrives in L.A. that she learns her college certificate is
a fraud. The only work available is in a less-than-respectable
speakeasy.
The job comes with
the opportunity to take the stage with Oz Dean, the club’s
captivating bandleader. But rivals out for her blood along with her
place in the spotlight lurk behind the curtain.
Oz Dean has the rare
ability to “see” music as brilliant colors, but nothing has ever
dazzled him like Carrie’s pure, choirgirl voice. With a mob debt
hanging over his head like a guillotine, he organizes a revue that
will launch them all to stardom. Unfortunately, his bold move
attracts exactly the kind of criminal attention he’d like to avoid.
Mired in Hollywood’s
underbelly, caught off-guard by their growing attraction, Carrie and
Oz are forced to consider the cost of success. Or their one chance to
make beautiful music together could be their last.
Author
Bio
Unquenchably
curious, Rebecca Halsey travels around the country looking for
souvenirs and experiences to include in her fiction. For Notes
of Temptation she curated mementos from
a voodoo museum in New Orleans, a ghost town in Arizona, and the
beach at Santa Monica.
She holds a Master
of Fine Arts degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill
University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from the
University of Georgia. When not writing, she works in cybersecurity
and enjoys running, cooking, and painting portraits. She resides in
Maryland with her husband and three children, all of whom tolerate
her immersion into jazz music and black-and-white movies.
Notes of
Temptation is her debut novel.
Links
Author
Website: http://www.rebeccahalsey.com/
Book
Excerpts
Oz sat down at the
piano and indicated Carrie should sit next to him on the bench. He
ran his fingers over the keys. No prim and proper pastor’s wife
here. Oz’s playing was decidedly masculine. His hand rested
casually across the keys as if prepared to pounce but not indicating
any eagerness about it. Carrie briefly entertained the thought of
those hands flying over her with the same intensity.
“You play the
piano too?” she asked.
He paused and gave
her the smile. That smile. The kind that deepened the shine in his
dark brown eyes. “As long as I’ve played the trumpet, though no
one can play like Ellison does.”
“Ellison, he’s
your piano player?”
“Righty-o, and
partner, brother nearly. Been playing with him for as long as I can
remember.”
He tore through the
opening bars of a song, working from one key to another. When he
settled on a sound, he fell into a rhythmic one-two-three progression
across chords. Watching him work the music was so engrossing, Carrie
didn’t expect what came next—his voice, a tenor. Quiet compared
to the piano, but with a resonating tone that hinted at the power
that he held inside him.
“It wasn’t
music,” he sang. “Only drums.” He pounded the low keys for
emphasis. “Of hearts beating, machines pinging, the roll of a cat’s
purr…”
The piano
interrupted with an interlude. His mouth tweaked up apologetically,
and his eyes looked over her face. Carrie realized he searched for
the next words. This was no mere recital. This was composition. She
scanned the room and saw Vesta’s white egg timer.
“Clocks ticking?”
she offered.
“The tipanic
tock of clocks,” he improvised.
The piano hovered
around the same one-two-three, one-two-three. Hearts beating indeed.
Carrie felt her own rattling against her ribcage.
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