MIXTAPE: Volume One
After spending time on tour with her famous father, musical prodigy Aria Gray is forced to return to her hometown and is left struggling to find her harmony in the competing notes that is high school: light and rhythmic songs of friendship, burning and intense ballads of love, and the dark and moody tones of tracks that she wishes she could just SKIP.
It’s the year 2000, and the Backstreet Boys are as popular as the screeching dial-up connection of America Online. Awkward, inward, and socially inept, sixteen-year-old Aria is just trying to make it through her junior year (which has to be easier than singing backup vocals in front of sold-out crowds, right?), when hot-jock Brock Miller takes an unlikely interest in her. An interest, that is, that proves to have severe consequences.
Aria must rely on her budding friendships, like that of bubbly blonde Emma Stewart, to navigate through dating the king of high school, receiving threats from the Homecoming queen, participating in extracurricular activities, and dealing with her blast-from-the-past, Noah Walker. That would be enough, except that after the unthinkable happens, Aria is buried beneath the weight of the notes of songs she isn’t even sure are real. She is left struggling to piece together the tracks of her personal playlist, while also trying to figure out which song played first and how to STOP the skipping nightmare that is stuck on REPEAT.
MIXTAPE: Volume Two
Ever since Homecoming, Aria Gray’s mind has been a skipping mixtape. Her thoughts remain stuck on the repeating track of that night: a fuzzy television screen, a stack of paper plates, hands pressed firmly upon her shoulders… the menacing grin.
Things weren’t meant to turn out this way. With Brock Miller’s sentence finally approaching, Aria believed her life would go back to normal. She was supposed to create a new playlist full of memories with her friends. Instead, she is left struggling to hear the notes, and no matter how much she turns up the volume, the songs won’t PLAY.
Emma Stewart is determined to help her best friend, no matter the cost. She knows that Aria needs to find a way to let the music back in. Dancing always worked for Emma. That is, until the tracks to her own playlist suddenly switched tempo, and now she must learn to adjust her body to the changing choreography. But with each step she takes, the notes blend further and further together until the songs start to SKIP and the disc becomes scratched. Then, the tracks just STOP.
How can she dance when there is no music?
MIXTAPE: Volume Three
Four years have passed since the horrific incident that turned Aria Gray’s mind into a scratched mixtape. Three years from the time that the love of her life, Noah Walker, left their hometown of Bridgeview to pursue his dream of becoming a professional musician. Two years since they last spent a holiday together, and one year ago that a careless decision made her press PAUSE on everything she knew and loved about him.
She understood that his decision wasn’t malicious, and she knew that she should be focusing instead on her final year of college with her best friend, Emma Stewart. But with the upcoming release of Aria’s worst nightmare, Brock Miller, she longs to be with the one person that could always help her fix the skipping tracks of her mind… and he’s getting harder to reach.
Although Emma is aware of just how hairbrained her childhood friend, Noah, can be, she knows she’ll be there to help Aria piece her playlist back together– until something suddenly presses STOP, and the music no longer comes. Emma is certain there must be a mistake; she can see that the mixtape is still spinning, but no matter how much she increases the volume, there is still no sound. She is left trying to figure out how to adjust the player, not knowing if it will forever silence the songs from within.
When Noah left to follow his dreams, he never imagined how difficult his everyday life would become. A shower after a good meal? A luxury. Coffee with a friend? Unheard of. Being able to contact your girlfriend on a regular basis? …Not as easy as it sounds. Mistakes are made. Promises are broken. Faith is shattered. Noah had always believed that music was his calling, but when the notes begin to PLAY in the wrong key and the lyrics become incoherent, his thoughts and emotions are no longer in consonance. Noah must now decide what price he is willing to pay for his dream.
With clashing rhythms and melodies, will their music remain in a constant state of discord, or can the mind, body, and soul ever reach perfect Harmony?
Releasing August 6, 2024!
