Saved by the Music
by Selene Castrovilla
The last place fifteen-year-old Willow wants to spend her summer is on a run-down former coffee barge in a boatyard in Rockaway in New York City. But that’s where her force-of-nature Aunt Agatha, a talented violinist, is converting the broken down “steel atrocity” into a floating chamber music concert hall, and Willow has no choice but to help. Her moody, unstable mother has kicked her out for the summer to make room for her latest boyfriend. Willow feels lonely, depressed, and hopeless, especially when she sees the uncomfortable living conditions on the barge—there isn’t even a shower! As if that’s not bad enough, Willow also has to deal with Craig, the verbally challenged, dangerously leering hunk of a construction worker who’s helping with the conversion. The one bright spot is Axel, an older teenage boy who lives alone on a neighboring sailboat. As she gets to know him, Willow is surprised to find that he’s the one playing the cello that she hears late at night on the barge deck. Introverted and mysterious, Axel has the soul of a poet, a penchant for Shakespeare, and a deep, philosophical mind. But he also carries the scars of a disturbing past and the searing pain that goes with it. The two bond through their shared pain and loneliness, and make each other laugh. But when devastating traumas threaten to destroy each of them, Willow and Axel struggle to save each other—and themselves— before it’s too late.
Read What Writers Are Saying About Saved by the Music:
“This is a writer to watch out for.”
—Daniel Ehrenhaft, author of The Afterlife and Tell It to Naomi
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Pub Date: November 2009