Blog Tour: Shattered by Kathi Baron (spotlight, excerpt)

Shattered
written by Kathi Baron
published by Westside Books

find it here: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Goodreads

 

About the book – from Goodreads: Teen violin prodigy Cassie has been tiptoeing around her father, whose moods have become increasingly explosive.After he destroys her beloved and valuable violin in a sudden rage, Cassie, shocked, runs away, eventually seeking refuge in a homeless shelter.She later learns that her father, a former violinist, was physically beaten as a child by her grandfather, a painful secret he’s kept hidden from his family, and the cause of his violent outbursts. With all of their lives shattered in some way, Cassie’s family must struggle to repair their broken relationships.As Cassie moves forward, she ultimately finds a way to help others, having developed compassion through her own painful experiences. Written in lyrical prose, Shattered tells the moving story of how one girl finds inner strength through music.

Please enjoy the following excerpt from Shattered.

I’m outside myself, watching as I talk to this strange woman and the guy who tried to chase down the thief.

“Sorry.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “He got away—he was too fast—way too fast for me.”

“Thanks for trying.” I look around, wondering what I’m going to do now, without any money left.

“Are you all right?” The strange woman’s leaning over me, her pointy nose almost touching mine. Her eyes are an off shade of blue, and I resist the urge to back away from her face. Instead, I lean away.

“Fine. I’m fine.” I’m talking myself into it so she’ll go away.

“You should tell the attendant.” She points over to the ticket booth. “She can get Security for you.”

“That’s okay.”

“Security could call the cops.”

“No cops.”

She backs away from me like I hit her. “I come over here just about every morning after the shelter closes. The Security people are real nice.”

“It’d probably be more trouble than it’s worth,” says the guy. “He’s long gone by now.”

“It’s your life.” She shrugs.

“I wish I had some change to spare, but I’m flat broke,” says the guy, showing me his empty palms.

“Me too,” says the woman. She points outside. “I’m probably gonna have to work the median strip to buy lunch.”

“You should call your folks,” he says, pointing at my cell phone. “It’s rough out there on the streets.”

So they’re homeless. Pieces of thoughts start to swirl in my brain. All the events of the last ten hours are stalling out in my mind. I feel this current of fear about Calliope, twisting up with a strand of hopelessness about being broke, all of them winding up tight in my mind. That’s when I rewrite it in my head: They are homeless. I am away from home. It sort of helps, and then I take a breath. When I exhale, I hear a violin playing and I turn my head in that direction.

“Hey, thanks, but I have to go.” I get up and follow the music. It gets louder and louder as I walk through the bus station toward the entrance, through the revolving door, and outside.

I recognize it right away. The Dixie Chicks tune, “Let Him Fly.” Winnie and I know the words to all their songs. A man wearing a military jacket with long, stringy gray hair is standing there, his open violin case at his feet. It’s jarring to see such a big guy playing a slow song on a violin, which looks like a toy in his hands. But in a few seconds, I’m in the sadness of the melody. “I’m gonna let him fly, fly.” And I think about my dad, and I think about my violin flying. Everything flying away. I’m somewhere between the silent echoes of the bass and treble of that violin and the words “Oh, I’m gonna let him fly.” And this time, when he plays the notes for the word “fly,” it comes out in a whisper and I know that whisper. It’s barely there, yet weighted. Breathing.

He finishes and I clap.

He nods at me, looks away, then back at me. He’s expecting me to put money where my praise is, but I have nothing.

I should move on, but I can’t. “Could I play it?”

“No.” He puts his hand out like he wants me to back off.

I step forward. “C’mon, please?” I point at his violin. “Just one song.”

“Uh, well.” He looks me up and down. “I guess you don’t look like the type to run off with Mildred here.”

“My three-quarter size was named Hermione. You know—Harry Potter?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I love those books.”

He pats his violin. “She’s named after my first love.”

I point at it again. “So, will you let me play it?”

“You know how?”

I nod. “I’ve been taking lessons since I was five.”

“Be gentle with the girl,” he says, handing me the violin, then the bow.

I take his violin and tuck it under my chin. It’s not the fit I’m used to, but once I get into a starting pose, something clicks. Like my brain has just recognized my violinist self. I stand tall, imagining Anal Al giving the downbeat, and then I shift into playing my solo.

When I get tripped up in the same place I did at my concert, I stop.

“Keep going,” he says.

After a few notes, it’s like I’m inside the soul of this amazing violin goddess. I’ve left the earth, left my family, left Winnie, left Miss Sinclair, even left Calliope. I’m out there, birthed free of all the pain, and I’m my right self. A bird soaring, breathing, flapping over notes, flying free, no boundaries, wrapping one note into another, until I’m enveloped in silk, beautiful purple silk, wings flapping silk in the free breeze of blueness, a refuge.

People are clapping and whistling. I guess while I was flying, a crowd had formed around me. The owner of the violin starts to clap then, too, and he’s smiling, and he’s not a scary marine man anymore. He looks like a really nice guy. The people walk by us and drop coins into his case, a few dollar bills, and one guy drops in a five.

“Hey, we could buy breakfast,” I say, smiling.

He puts his hands on his hips. “You think I’m gonna give you a cut?”

“Would be nice.” I hand him back his violin. “I just got robbed.”

“I guess I could do that. McDonald’s is right around the corner.” He points down the street.

I turn toward that direction. “Let’s go.”

“You sure are a friendly chick.” He’s staring into my eyes with a big grin on his face.

I’m a hungry chick is what I’m thinking, but his eyes are kind of beady and he’s suddenly creeping me out. “Whatever.”

He squats and picks up all the money and puts it in his big coat pocket. This annoys me, since I earned most of it, but I don’t say anything because I don’t want him to change his mind about treating me to McDonald’s.

He packs up his violin and leads me around the corner. The big golden arches call to me. I zip my sweatshirt and put up the hood.

“What’s your name?”

“Cassie.”

“I’m Harley.” He opens the door to McDonald’s for me and I feel like I’m going to dine at the Drake in downtown Chicago or something. That’s how happy I am to be here. All the smells mixed up together—salty fries, sausage, grease, and coffee—they make me smile for the first time since I left home.

Find Ms. Baron here: web, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads

 

Happy reading wherever you are and whenever you get a free chance!!!