Bella's Song: Ladies Who Lunch Series #6

By Patrizia Murray

A melty chocolate voice that spans nearly four octaves, introduces Daniel to Bella, a singer and composer, who is hoping to make it to the big time with her voice and her songs. She is on the brink of a brilliant career, a performer of everything from opera to Broadway, with stops in between for a little jazz, a little country, and a little Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Daniel is an already famous musician who hasn’t had a big new hit for a few years, & he’s stuck teaching wannabes how to compose music that sells.

Once he introduces Bella to his fame, and she outpaces him in popularity, he doesn’t want to hold her back, even though he has fallen in love with her. When a tragedy overwhelms him, he leaves her so he can fade into obscurity. He had followed that siren’s call anywhere she led, but the threads that held them together are mysterious and full of longing. He needs to make sure his song-bird is safe for all time, from all that threatens her, including himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrizia Murray
• Release date: Sep 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311825483

Book preview

Bella’s Song

Patrizia Murray

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Bella’s Song

A melty chocolate voice that spans nearly four octaves, introduces Daniel to Bella, a singer and composer, who is hoping to make it to the big time with her voice and her songs. She is on the brink of a brilliant career, a performer of everything from opera to Broadway, with stops in between for a little jazz, a little country, and a little Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Daniel is an already famous musician who hasn’t had a big new hit for a few years, & he’s stuck teaching wannabes how to compose music that sells.

Once he introduces Bella to his fame, and she outpaces him in popularity, he doesn’t want to hold her back, even though he has fallen in love with her. When a tragedy overwhelms him, he leaves her so he can fade into obscurity. He had followed that siren’s call anywhere she led, but the threads that held them together are mysterious and full of longing. He needs to make sure his songbird is safe for all time, from all that threatens her, including himself.

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Bella’s Song

Copyright © 2015 by Patrizia Murray

Print ISBN

First print book Publication: August 2015

Cover design by Bella Media Management

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

If you have purchased this copy of Bella’s Song by

Patrizia Murray, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

Regarding E-book Piracy

This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book. The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment. This is Patrizia Murray’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms.Murray’s right to earn a living from her work.

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Dedicated to Family, who indulge my writing, without understanding it or making judgements on the inner workings of my mind, every music teacher, accompanist and conductor I ever had over the years, and the Ladies who Lunch.

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Acknowledgements

Valley of the Sun Romance Writers of America, Glendale Chocolate Affair, and readers of like minds to mine.

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Chapter 1

Maybe a hike would clear her head. She had been sitting in front of her keyboard all morning, with nothing more to show for her assigned class than she had yesterday, or the day before. Bella was beginning to think maybe this whole expense had been a huge mistake. She had travelled out here to the Rocky Mountains, in Western Canada, to a small National Park town called Banff, where she was enrolled in a summer piano composition class. She had been given several assignments by email to complete before the big man got here to start classes.

Daniel Magrath was a world renowned pianist, key-boardist, producer and composer, although he hadn’t had a new hit, or found a new prodigy in a couple of years. He was a few years older than Bella, with a string of hits both as a performer and a producer behind him. He even had an Olympics fanfare in his resume. His hits had been covered by many bands, and he was known to have discovered several new young artists. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll discover me!

It was rumored that Magrath had been hit with writer’s block, and was having troubles coming up with anything new. Bella well knew that feeling. She had it in spades, even though she didn’t have a music career and multi-million dollar royalties to sustain her while she worked on her music. Her block wasn’t that of writing and composing, it was of the ‘not commercially viable’ type as she had a drawer full of rejection letters saying just that.

This was going to be her last hurrah as a musician. If nothing came of this course, if the big man didn’t see any promise in her work, she would have to try to silence the music in her head and take a job back home teaching music to untalented and unresponsive young people whose parents wanted them to learn to play piano. What a daunting thought! She didn’t even know if she could ever silence the music in her head. It had been bubbling around her brain ever since she could walk and talk. She never walked, really, she danced.

She thought that old song by ABBA that her mother used to play, could well apply to her.

Mother said I learned to dance long before I could walk

I started to sing, long before I could talk…

Bella had always wondered how other people managed to get along in the world with all those songs rumbling around their brains, just fighting to get out onto paper and keyboard. It took a long time before she realized that she was different, and that other people’s minds didn’t work like hers. They didn’t think in rhymes, didn’t emote in tunes, didn’t walk in time to unseen cadences in their minds.

Now, after sending countless tunes to countless music agents in countless genres, she was at her wit’s end. How would she ever live if she couldn’t sing, couldn’t compose? What would happen to her if the only musical outlet she could manage was singing in her church choir on Sundays? She shuddered at the thought. It wasn’t that she hated church music. After all, most of the great composers of the past, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Vivaldi-- all had composed super church music, most of which Bella had sung in her years of choral work. It was just that there was so much more out there than sacred music, and Bella wanted to sing, play and compose them all.

She had donned walking shoes and a small day pack to take a hike through the marvelous grounds and surroundings of the Rockies, hoping for inspiration. She wore hiking clothes, as few as possible, due to the mountain heat. It was only about 75 above, but it seemed so much warmer, the sun more intense because of the altitude. People had told her that the thinner Rockies air would feel much warmer than she was used to. Even now, she could feel the sun burning her skin to a light tan. She rarely had to use sunscreen, as her skin darkened immediately as soon as she was outdoors. Her tan cargo shorts and blinding neon orange shoes showed off that tan to perfection, and her lighter skinned friends all envied her.

She read a lot about skin cancer, but so far, all she did was tan. No burning, no reddening, no blisters. She went religiously to the dermatologist every year, and he told her she was one of the rare ones, who might never have problem skin, thank goodness.

The birdsongs which sounded to her like laments, the rustling of the trees that mimicked brushes on drums, her quiet footfalls on pine needled pathways that gave a bass beat to the songs around her, calmed her somewhat. She trudged along the well worn trail, heading off to who knew where, when she heard a piano not far away from the path.

There, just back from the trail was a very small log cabin, that couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred square feet in size. A small, narrow track led up to it, barely wide enough for her to pass by the thick spruce trees on either side. She had to swipe at the branches that threatened to poke her in the eye, or scratch her bare arms, to keep moving forward. If she were the type to scare easily, the trees might have looked menacing and dangerous. As it was, the fine, clean scent of pine and undergrowth calmed her and cleared her sinuses, giving energy to her steps.

The rustic little building had a dark green metal roof, she assumed to allow snow to slide off it in winter. There was a porch that spanned the front of the cabin, with steps leading up to a screen door. The inner door was open, allowing the crashing notes to emanate from behind the screen.

Bella stopped as the angry notes played from the door of the small haven. This must be one of the private cabins that the artists in residence had access to, giving them solitude to practice, meditate, compose, or whatever. They could be outfitted with whatever instruments and computer simulations the artist required, although they were rumored to be quite Spartan. Bella had heard that they were one room with a couple of chairs, a toilet and sink that were hooked up to a cistern and septic, and the Center would cart in anything extra that the artist wanted. The