Depot House Blues, Book1 | EBook Episode
Episode 1
Written & Illustrated by Lisa Loucks Christenson
Glass Slipper Serials™ imprint of Loucks Studios, Inc.
6000 Words, Cliffhanger ending
Summer 2017
Cover: Lisa Loucks Christenson
Genre: New Adult, Romantic Suspense
Cover Blurb
Suzanne Sonnet's name worked like a secret charm, giving her the second glance she sometimes needed beyond her stare-worthy brown eyes, waist long flowing chestnut locks dangling beyond her polished smile, one that was flawlessly centered between the shadowed depths of her dimpled cheeks, and, on occasion, opened opportunities for her where none existed.
When a letter from a major label arrives, offering her a dream trip to Nashville, Suzanne is as speechless as her unsung words scratched in the notebook she calls "Unrhymes"; a collection of her verses scratched in corner-curled and tear-covered pages. Her book of handwritten love songs with the purpose of lifting, if no one else, her spirits, with pages of ideas for living optimistically. A reminder to herself that no matter what troubles came her way; somewhere inside those pages, there will be enough words between the covers to keep her focused, positive, and cemented in her faith.
When the train crosses over the Minnesota state line a feeling of attainable dreams, briefly, teases her thoughts. Inspired by the views, Suzanne quickly scribbles her feelings into her notebook, sharing her songwriter's perspective of late October autumn scenery. While her mind drifts off into the whirling red and sunrise yellow maple leaves breezing past her box-shaped window, she ignores the foreboding twinge, the feeling of an unwelcome change heading her way. Instead, she studies the horizon, watching the leaves of summer disappear, one by one, then a few at a time into the distance: never even suspecting they could be weathered warnings of her colorful future.
As the moon rises it offers but a sliver of its light, flickering through each window, leaving, but only for a second, a crescent-shaped blotch of light on her singing dreams notebook. Moments later, she notices a coyote running away from the train tracks. When Suzanne leans over her to get a better view of its lanky figure while standing in the still waters of a slough, the brakes of the train hitch, altering her destiny.
For as fast as her last view of the coyote flashed by, Suzanne's tossed into the arms of Jamie Weston, Minnesota’s biggest loan shark and swindler, changing forever, her Nashville-bound itinerary to a train destined north: to a station no one sang about anymore, the vacant Depot House Blues, sitting off the tracks, in the center of downtown Rochester, Minnesota.
Some say her stay in Rochester is where the scandal originated, but Suzanne still claims it all started when the trains' brakes locked, halting her dreams.
© 2014 Lisa Loucks Christenson ALL Rights Reserved
