Blog Tour ~ Feuds and Interludes: Road to Rocktoberfest by R.L. Merrill ~ Excerpt || Giveaway
Afternoon all!
A rock and roll welcome to the Blog Tour for Feuds and Interludes: Road to Rocktoberfest by R.L. Merrill!! I am so happy I can be part of this tour and share this one with you all~
Today I got an exclusive excerpt, a fun giveaway, and book/author information!
Let’s get this tour started!
From the award-winning author of Hurricane Reese, Summer of Hush, and You Can Do Magic comes a new rock star romance series inspired by legendary rock ‘n’ roll love affairs. Feuds and Interludes is a rivals-to-lovers, hurt/comfort love story complete with adorable septuagenarian lovebirds and beloved characters from Merrill’s previous rock-inspired series.
Boone Collins and Shane Butler are two of rock music’s brightest stars today. Their grandfathers founded a powerhouse rock supergroup that ruled the airwaves in the late 1970s, and the grandsons grew up in their shadows to become frontmen of their own successful bands. The epic rivalry between Boone and Shane is notorious, and it’s about to blow up.
When Shane’s grandfather Bruce inducts his deceased bandmate into the Rock Music Hall of Fame, he admits to the world that he wrote the band’s biggest hit about his best friend’s widow—Boone’s grandmother Vera Jean. The two want to rekindle their relationship, and their grandsons are determined to keep them apart. Only, working together for a common goal reveals surprising similarities between the rock stars as well as a chemistry they cannot ignore. Shane sees behind Boone’s glittery facade to the secrets he hides from his bandmates, and Boone is there to pick up the pieces when Shane’s professional world implodes. Together, they plot a musical collaboration to celebrate their grandfathers’ accomplishments instead of fighting—a star-studded tribute at the storied Rocktoberfest event in the Nevada desert—but will being in the spotlight prove to be too much for their fledgling romance to handle?
Buy here:Books2Read
About the author:
Whether she’s writing swoon-worthy contemporary romance featuring quirky, queer, and relatable characters or diving deep into the supernatural to give readers a shiver, R.L. Merrill loves creating compelling stories that will stay with readers long after closing the book. Ro writes inclusive romance for the Happily Ever After collective, contributes paranormal hilarity to Robyn Peterman’s Magic and Mayhem Universe, and pens horror-inspired tales and music reviews for HorrorAddicts.net. A mom, wife, daughter, and former educator, you can find her rocking out in her Bronco with Great Dane pup Velma, being terrorized by feline twins Dracula and Frankenstein, or headbanging at a rock show near her home in the San Francisco Bay Area! Stay Tuned for more…
Excerpt
Boone:
My phone buzzed a moment later.
This is Jeff Garza. How can I help you?
“How can you help me,” I wondered out loud as my thumb hovered over the phone’s keyboard.
It’s Boone Collins. I need to speak with Shane. Can you give me his number?
This was becoming quite an arduous undertaking.
I’m not at liberty to give out Shane’s personal information.
I groaned. Can you please give my number to him and ask him to get in touch?
Now I looked like a whiny bitch. Great. Maybe I should have just let it go.
May I ask what this is in regards to?
“Grrr! Jesus, this guy is nosy. Uhhh, ‘it’s a personal matter.’ There.” I clicked send and waited for a few minutes before I got a response.
I’m sorry, I’ll need more information before I contact Mr. Butler at this hour.
“Fuck!” I didn’t want to spill it all, but I figured this would let me know whether or not his grandfather had told him about the date.
It’s about Bruce Duncan.
Again with the long wait time.
Thank you. I will pass along your inquiry to Mr. Butler, and if he’s able, he will respond within 24-48 hours. Thank you for contacting Slade Artist Management.
“Yeah, thanks for nothing.” I slammed my head back against the headrest of my Mach-E and groaned. Maybe this was a bad idea, reaching out to Shane. What would I even say? I didn’t want to end up being rude or making him angry.
My phone buzzed from an unfamiliar number.
What about my grandfather?
I started to type a response three times, but I worried that context and tone would get lost via text. So I hit the call button.
“Why are you calling me?”
“Hi, Shane. Sorry, I didn’t want to be misunderstood via text.”
He didn’t know me very well, and, well, I didn’t want to accidentally offend him.
“Oh.” He was quiet for several beats. I was trying to think of what to say when he said, “This is weird. I never talk on the phone.”
I laughed. “Me either. I just wanted to know if you knew, you know, about our grandparents.”
Shane sighed heavily into the phone, making that muffled sound as though his breath traveled over the microphone. I got goose bumps just thinking about it.
“Yeah.”
I smiled. I could hear the frustration in his voice too.
“It’s weird, right? I didn’t know, uh, about before. She and Grandpa conveniently left out the part about their little love triangle.”
“Convenient.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
Man, he was always ready with the snide remark. Where was the comeback now?
“Did you know? The whole story?”
I heard rustling on his end. I wondered where he was. He lived in LA, I knew that, but I wondered where.
“I knew. I knew about the song. I knew he still carried a torch for her. Had no clue he was going to tell the world at the ceremony, though. I would have cautioned against it.”
“I had no clue,” I said, my voice just above a whisper.
“Yeah, well, why would you?”
“I don’t know. I thought I knew the whole story. That they were all friends, Gran and Grandpa got married, Bruce left the band—”
“John decided to go solo. Pops didn’t leave.”
“Ah. Guess we got different versions of the story.”
Shane scoffed. “Yeah, you could say that.”
A siren blared to life and startled me so badly, I dropped the phone again. Why I was so jumpy, I had no clue. I picked it up and…heard the siren on the other end of the call?
“Where are you?” I asked him.
“Why?”
I looked around the parking lot but of course, I had no idea what kind of car he drove. “That siren. Are you here?”
He paused. “I dropped him off. Don’t want him to have to call a Lyft, so I stuck around.”
I laughed. “Guess we’re in the same boat. I’m parked in the lot.”
My heart jumped at the thought of seeing him. Would he be pissed? Could we have an actual conversation away from everyone else and maybe not fight? I could think of nothing I’d rather do than see him in person right that very minute.
