Out of Tune [sample]

3: Out of Tune [sample]

Out of Tune has been released today (3rd July) with Random House UK as the third book in my three-book deal. I wrote Striking A Chord (already uploaded to Wattpad) as a prequel to this, exclusive to Wattpad, which you can also read in addition to this.

The paperback of this book is available now in the UK from bookstores and on Amazon (so those of you not able to get the paperback can get it shipped from Amazon), and the ebook should be available worldwide. Check the external link for my blog page to find where you can get it, if you're struggling to find it.

This is the last of the sample chapters (I can't post the whole thing because now it's published I won't really be doing that - you guys understand, I hope?)

Anyway - hope you enjoy it, and if you do, you can purchase the book :) xo

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Chapter Three

Todd O’Connor isn’t the only new kid, of course, but he’s by far the most talked about. I don’t see him for the rest of the morning, but I hear snatches of gossip about him. Although, nobody seems to know that much about him at all, not really.

‘Where did he even come from?’

‘Someone told me he used to go to boarding school in New York. Apparently, they caught him smoking pot in the library. Can you believe it?’

‘Well I heard he used to live in California. Got kicked out for selling drugs on the football pitch, you know?’

‘No, he moved from a juvie centre in North Dakota, I heard someone telling Olivia Riley.’

Not that I know much about him – but come on, people really believe all the rumors that are spilling around the school? I don’t pay them any attention. The bell finally rings for lunch, and I make my way to the cafeteria and over to usual table.

Josh and Austin are already there with Naomi. Then the twins, Sam and Neil, turn up just as I get there. I glance around the rest of the room, looking at the cliques and the groups of friends joking about, or having playful, yet still heated, debates about something.

I look back at my usual table as I draw closer, and there’s the usual feeling of disappointment in the pit of my stomach. It’s not that they’re bad people, or anything, it’s just . . . we don’t exactly have much in common. I never have much to say to them.

Josh pulls me into the empty space beside him and gives me a kiss full on the mouth as I sit down.

After a few minutes, the last of our little group arrive – Eliza and Danielle. I sit and pull apart the tuna salad sandwich I bought from the counter. It’s all the usual first-day-back talk: they moan about their classes, or say how relieved they are about the teacher they got for English this year. At least this is one conversation I can actually join in with.

‘Have you guys picked an elective yet?’ Neil asks.

‘I’ll probably end up choosing Film Studies,’ Austin says. ‘Watching movies for homework sounds like a piece of cake if you ask me.’

‘I don’t know. Choir again?’ Eliza is the kind of person who phrases most of her sentences like a question. ‘Totally boring, but the easiest class I’ve ever taken, you know?’

That goes on for a while. I don’t have any input: I don’t want to tell them which elective I’m planning on taking. They’d only laugh.

I never really have a lot to say in our conversations. They were all Josh’s friends before they were mine; I started to hang out with them once I began dating Josh, and truthfully, I don’t have that much in common with them.