Hi guys, we have Jay Northcote popping in with her new release Imperfect Harmony, we have a great excerpt, a brilliant giveaway and Aerin’s review. So check out the post and leave a comment to enter the giveaway! <3 ~Pixie~

Imperfect Harmony

Jay Northcote

Imperfect harmony can still be beautiful…

John Fletcher, a former musician, is stuck in limbo after losing his long-term partner two years ago. He’s shut himself off from everything that reminds him of what he’s lost. When his neighbour persuades him to join the local community choir, John rediscovers his love of music and finds a reason to start living again.

Rhys Callington, the talented and charismatic choir leader, captures John’s attention from the first moment they meet. He appears to be the polar opposite of John: young, vibrant, and full of life. But Rhys has darkness in his own past that is holding him back from following his dreams.

Despite the nineteen-year age gap, the two men grow close and a fragile relationship blossoms. Ghosts of the past and insecurities about the future threaten their newfound happiness. If they’re going to harmonise in life and love as they do in their music, they’ll need to start following the same score.

Excerpt

Luckily there were still some parking spaces outside the church hall where Maggie’s choir met. John made sure they arrived a little early so Maggie wouldn’t have to walk too far. She was managing well on one crutch, but she still tired easily. After he parked, he got out and hurried around to help her out of the passenger door.

“Thanks, love,” she said, patting him on the arm. “I can manage now.”

A vicious gust of wind whipped a strand of hair into her face. It was dark, still sleeting, and probably slippery underfoot. There was no way John was going to leave until she was safely indoors. “I’ll just see you inside. Let me take your bag.”

Maggie let him have it without argument, and he popped it over his arm. He hovered close to Maggie as she made her way slowly to the double doors. He held one open for her and was hit by a blast of warm air. Then he accompanied her inside as she crutched along the corridor towards an open door. Yellow light flooded out, and the sound of a tenor voice singing “I Can See Clearly Now” raised the hairs on the back of John’s neck with its pure, clear beauty.

“I thought you said the emphasis was on fun rather than perfection?” he said quietly. “He’s got quite a voice.”

“That’ll be Rhys, our choir leader,” Maggie said with a smile. “Come and meet him, even if you’re not staying.”

Maggie paused when she reached the doorway and put a finger to her lips. They listened and waited for Rhys to finish singing. John peered over Maggie’s shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of the man the voice belonged to. Rhys, John presumed, was alone in the room. With his back to the door, he stood at a table pushed to the edge of the room, shuffling through some papers as he sang. All John could see of him was that he was small and slight, and quite young, based on the cut of his clothes. A hood covered his hair.

When he finished, Maggie started clapping.

Rhys wheeled around. “Oh my God! You made me jump.” He pushed his hood down and his face lit up as he beamed. “Maggie. How are you?”

John’s eyes widened as he took in Rhys’s front view as he approached Maggie and gave her a careful hug. His hair, which was shaved at the back and sides, was long on top and dyed peacock blue. His eyebrow was pierced, his arms were covered with tattoos, and the front of his T-shirt was emblazoned with a glittery equals sign in rainbow colours. All in all, he was at least twenty years younger than John had expected and completely unlike how John would have imagined a choir leader to look. In this dingy church hall in their small market town, Rhys looked like a bird of paradise that had accidentally ended up in a cage full of sparrows.

About Jay

Jay lives just outside Bristol in the West of England, with her husband, two children, and two cats.

She comes from a family of writers, but she always used to believe that the gene for fiction writing had passed her by. She spent years only ever writing emails, articles, or website content. One day, she decided to try and write a short story–just to see if she could–and found it rather addictive. She hasn’t stopped writing since.

Where to find the author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook profile | Facebook Author Page | Jay’s books

Giveaway!

Win an ecopy of one of Jay Northcote’s backlist!

Review

Title: Imperfect Harmony

Author: Jay Northcote

Genre: Contemporary

Length: Novel

ISBN: B01E18FZP6

Publisher: Jaybird Press (April 15th 2016)

Heat Level: Moderate

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥ 3 Hearts

Reviewer: Aerin

Blurb: Imperfect harmony can still be beautiful…

John Fletcher, a former musician, is stuck in limbo after losing his long-term partner two years ago. He’s shut himself off from everything that reminds him of what he’s lost. When his neighbour persuades him to join the local community choir, John rediscovers his love of music and finds a reason to start living again.

Rhys Callington, the talented and charismatic choir leader, captures John’s attention from the first moment they meet. He appears to be the polar opposite of John: young, vibrant, and full of life. But Rhys has darkness in his own past that is holding him back from following his dreams.

Despite the nineteen-year age gap, the two men grow close and a fragile relationship blossoms. Ghosts of the past and insecurities about the future threaten their newfound happiness. If they’re going to harmonise in life and love as they do in their music, they’ll need to start following the same score.

Product Link: Amazon Global Link

Review: I am such a big fan of Jay Northcote, as soon as I hear she has a new book coming out, I immediately start drooling. I loved almost every single one of her books and I’m so sad to say this isn’t going to be one of them. Imperfect Harmony isn’t a bad book, far from it, but there were several things that kept me from being engaged in it. I didn’t lose myself in the story, wasn’t able to fully connect with either one of the MCs, but by far the worst thing is that as full of emotions as this book is, it didn’t make me feel anything.

John Fletcher is a 42 year old man, a former musician who two years later is still grieving the death of his longtime partner, Brandon. John doesn’t know what to do with himself and aside from his job as a substitute teacher, he has no other life to speak of. His passion for music is all but gone and he no longer dares to play his beloved violin, because the very thing that used to bring him joy now only brings him sorrow and heartbreak.

John’s neighbor needs help and asks John to drive her to her choir practice, where John meets Rhys, a 23 year old choir director. On the surface Rhys is everything John isn’t: confident, young, beautiful, tattooed and charming. Rhys takes an instant interest in John and despite John’s reluctance to get involved with Rhys, they become lovers. John is insecure about a lot of things, at the top of the list being his body and his age. The 19 years age difference between them is a constant thorn in their relationship. Their interactions (especially the sexual ones) are awkward but they feel real; the problem is that I never got to feel the chemistry between them, the attraction, or anything that convinced me that they have something worth pursuing.

As different as John and Rhys appear to be, they actually have lots of things in common, too many in my humble opinion. They’re both musicians, they both quit playing the music they loved so much, they both lost the other half of their souls (about 2 years ago in both cases)…. so not only do we have one grieving man, we have two of them at the same time. I expected to feel the angst and the sorrow considering there’s so much of it, but this book never became angsty or dark. It was too fluffy, too light; I know some people will love this book for this reason, but I’m not one of them.

If a character is so tormented by the death of a lover that he can’t seem to move on and thinks about him even while he has sex with his current boyfriend, I want to feel the pain. So this book deals with so much loss but I didn’t feel sadness or pain, there are second chances but I didn’t feel happiness and joy. I was mostly along for the ride, observing the characters and reading about their feelings but unable to connect with any of it.

This book had such a geriatric feeling and that’s probably because the only young characters are Rhys, his teenage brother (that we only see twice for brief moments) and John. There are old neighbors, old choir members, old people in the nursing home where John and Rhys perform every Saturday….. I know I should admire the guys for their selflessness but this many old people don’t belong in my books. This book needed some LIFE, so young enthusiasm and joy, because the guys spend too much time crying and they have no fun to speak of (unless you consider serenading people in a nursing home as fun). Even the epilogue, that HEA I was waiting for was disappointing. A party at the house they share together, how lovely! Too bad all the guests are elderly people. I know I sound like a snobbish bitch, and I promise I love my elderly relatives, but that doesn’t mean I want so many of them in my books.

Imperfect Harmony is a nicely written book, a nice story about second chances, that misses the spice that would make it fabulous.

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