A Brand New Contemporary Women's Fiction is Coming Soon (& YOU Get a Sneak Peek!)

Hello my friends!

I hope you are as well as possible, given everything that's going on in the world. My job (and my most sincere goal) is to provide you with an escape. Until the Truth Comes Out is a Book Club Book (complete with thought-provoking Book Club Questions at the end). It's a character-driven women's fiction novel set from the 1960s to 1998 in the U.S.A. (ahh, the nostalgia of a world before social media).

It features a world-famous rock band and the women who love them. It's packed with scandal, drama, and secrets. It's about how fame impacts family. It's about motherhood, marriage, and the lies we tell ourselves. It's about having the strength to make a decision when forced to choose between two terrible options.

As promised, here is an Exclusive Advanced Look at the book: THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT

“There are no secrets that time does not reveal.” ~ Jean Racine

 ~

SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1997

MOJAVE DESERT

CLAUDIA CRAWFORD

It would be the only night like it for another four thousand years. The evening arrived with the hope that all that had been shattered could somehow be repaired. In the days leading up to it, conversations were had—the meaningful, once-in-a-lifetime kind. Promises were made. Plans were hatched. Lies were told. When the sun came up the next day, nothing would be the same. And deep down, they all knew it. Even though they were pretending they didn’t.

The remaining members of legendary rock band The Vows and their families were expecting to be swept up in the wild ride of nostalgia and adoration they’d been craving. Instead, they were caught up in a sordid, terrible drama. Too much had happened since the night many months ago when the hurtling object had first been spotted in the sky, its curved tail illuminating what would otherwise remain hidden. The comet would continue its journey unaware of the upheaval and pain and triumphs of the people below. It hurried along, like time itself, indifferent and unyielding.

The Concert Under the Comet was set to take place just as Hale-Bopp reached its closest distance to Earth. There had been some concern all week that a bank of clouds might ruin the show. Thankfully, they drifted away that morning, allowing the stars—and the single streak of light that would get twenty-thousand rock fans out into the Mojave Desert on a cool spring Saturday night—to show themselves.

But it wasn’t only the comet they’d come to see. It was the lineup of stars. The biggest names in the music industry would perform, several of whom would take the stage together for the first and last time. It would be televised around the globe, making it bigger than the original Woodstock. More important than Live Aid ‘85. Filled with more star power than a Vanity Fair Oscar party. Even the ticketholders would be either wildly rich or so beautiful that someone would shell out eight thousand dollars to get them through the gate.

It was a tribute to a dead legend. The rise of a new star. The end of innocence for one lost teenager. It would be the greatest reconciliation of any celebrity couple in history. Or it would be their demise. Those last two things would remain up in the air until morning. The location was a well-guarded secret. It had to be if they were going to keep the riffraff away. The riffraff could watch via pay-per-view for a whopping $49.95 (the highest-priced pay-per-view event up to that point in time). The record label executives, production team, and cable provider were certain the riffraff would be all too happy to pool their cash so they could say they’d been a part of it when they got to work the following Monday. They were right.

Two hours before sundown, the audience would be brought to the location in a steady stream of air-conditioned buses, limousines, and town cars. The lights would go up. The music would play. People would cheer themselves hoarse and drink and dance and sing along (most of them off-key, depending on how many drinks they had). When they’d go back to Las Vegas, their drivers would turn on the heat for their now-chilly, exhausted passengers. The drivers would be relieved they weren’t rowdy and out of control. Instead, they were dead quiet as the shock of what happened lingered.

That afternoon, five-month-old Elliott (who always went straight to sleep in the car) dozed through the long ride under the bright afternoon sun. Later, when the sky grew dark, his mother, Claudia Crawford, would point up at it and tell him about the comet, knowing he wouldn’t understand, but hoping it would somehow leave a faint imprint on his fresh, new mind. Claudia would give the performance of a lifetime that night. She was the only woman who’d been part of The Vows, but she wouldn’t play with them that evening. She would go on alone for reasons the audience wouldn’t understand until after.

Claudia had planned to leave little Elliott back at the hotel in Vegas with her very reliable French nanny. Only the nanny went out dancing the night before and never came back, so Claudia was forced to bring him to the desert and leave him in the care of two teenage girls she barely knew. But everything would be fine. Elliott would be safely tucked away in a holiday trailer nearby with the girls watching over him, and Claudia would only be gone for forty-five minutes.

An hour tops.

But of course, that’s not what happened. Things ran late, as they do at these events, and she ended up leaving him for the better part of two hours. By the time she returned to the trailer, it would be empty.

Before long, she would find herself groping her way through the impossibly dark desert, screaming his name,

gripped by a panic that only fills a parent whose child has vanished. It would occur to her that she might never again hold her baby. Never press his chubby cheek to hers, never smell his neck, never hear him laugh again. She might never hear him speak his first words or watch him take his first steps. What if he never got to do those things? What if he was already dead?

Her knees would give out, and she’d slide to the cold ground, and she’d be disgusted at herself for letting her

emotions overwhelm her. She’d be hauled to her feet and ordered to keep going by the last person on earth she expected to help. Although her companion was only there because her child was missing too.

The early reviews are coming in, and I’m seeing words like ‘perfect,’ ‘couldn’t put it down,’ and ‘your best work yet,' 'For those who loved Daisy Jones & the Six or Malibu Rising...'

So, that’s pretty sweet…

And here is a big old secret that no one else knows – the paperback is already available to purchase on Amazon. So, if you don’t want to wait for February 5th, you can order it now!

BUY AN ADVANCED PAPERBACK COPY HERE!

OR YOU CAN WIN A SIGNED COPY OF THE PAPERBACK ON GOODREADS!

CLICK HERE TO ENTER TO WIN A SIGNED COPY

Okay, that's it for this lady!

I'll be back on February 5th to celebrate the OFFICIAL LAUNCH!

In the meantime, thank you so much for being here. I am truly grateful.

xoxo,

mel