melanie dexter author
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Hi, readers! Drop me a line! I’d love to hear from you. Where are you writing from? Which of my characters do you like, and which do you loathe? What would be Thérèse’s nickname for you? Ask me anything!
“It shouldn’t have worked. Violin and trombone? They were just too far apart. But Fred was such a gorgeous, sensitive musician, it was a revelation. Their combined sound was satin and molten gold and granite, and something else without a name. Their articulation, their phrasing, their palette, everything matched like they’d been put on earth for the purpose of playing together, of creating, here in this storage room in a crumbling theater, something huge and important and fleeting.”
Dortmund Quartet #1: Musical Chairs
Musical Chairs is the story of Matilda, a musician trying to land a good gig, find love, and figure some things out. Also health insurance. Health insurance would be nice.
It was all because of the Strawberry Funnel Cake Crème Frappuccino, when you get right down to it. If Matilda Carlstrom hadn’t nearly dumped it all over herself minutes before her master’s degree violin recital, she never would have met Ken. Or invited him to her performance. Or dedicated an encore to him. To brilliant, kind, hilarious Ken. Ballroom-dancing Ken. Fellow beer-snob Ken. It was love at first sight. The end. Roll credits.
Their happily ever after should have been a no-brainer, but not so fast! Enter Megyn, Matilda’s arch-nemesis, with the enormous diamond nose stud and the $800,000 Guadagnini.
The sexting fiasco Megyn maliciously orchestrates sends Matilda running away from her problems – and not for the first time. Soon she finds herself in the orchestra pit of an abysmal Broadway show touring the Midwest. Will she finally come to her senses before she makes the mistake of a lifetime?
“I don’t think the audience heard much. It was like a hospital ward out there. Why slow music makes people cough is a medical mystery for the ages.”
Dortmund Quartet #2: The Ninth Bus
From violinist and author Melanie Dexter comes The Ninth Bus, the second book of the Dortmund Quartet. What happens when you combine a tour bus, a skunk, and far too many double bass players?
Cellist and former Miss Ohio Thérèse Richard suddenly finds herself unemployed after losing all three of her summer gigs in a single day. She needs to come up with a plan B right away. Going home to Fairchild, Ohio is not an option.
Her assets? She has an entrepreneurial spirit and a way with a spreadsheet, and she can usually charm her way into or out of any situation. On top of that, with the local orchestra temporarily shut down, she has a lot of other newly-unemployed friends in the same boat. And her ace in the hole? She just inherited a rock band’s long-retired tour bus. So what if it's fifty years old? It's in mint condition, with a state-of-the-art eight-track player and Space Invaders console! Putting it all together, she comes up with an idea that, if it works, could solve everyone’s problems.
There are just a couple of complications: why is her orchestra forced to replace its double bass player every few days? What is the deal with Kelly Jo? Is she evil, or brilliant, or both? And how long is Thérèse going to be able to keep lying to herself about her feelings for Stratton, the gloomy conductor and bus driver?
“Um, OK. What was the point of contention?” Thérèse was exercising greater patience than any of the rest of us would have, but we were all listening agog.
“It’s so stupid, really. Trivial. He wants to know my name and what I look like. And to meet me in person.”
“Men can be so unreasonable. But, just so we’re all on the same page here, is there a reason you won’t do those things? They are, and I’m not taking his side or anything, but they are kind of traditional.”
Dortmund Quartet #3: Waiting for the Other Shoe
Waiting for the Other Shoe, a modern-day fairy tale, is the third book in the Dortmund Quartet by violinist Melanie Dexter.
Violin teacher Twilight Del Forno may be a little eccentric. (Well, more than a little, to be honest. Those overalls! That hair! That weird commune she grew up on!) But she is kind and gentle, and completely devoted to her students. She certainly deserves a better life than the one she is living in Dortmund, her small university town.
Her apartment is comically small. Her tragically underpaid job gets more demeaning with every passing day. Her elderly orange VW Beetle is pretty dinged-up. And she’s head-over-heels in love with the voice of a man she must never meet in person.
But she has us, her seven best friends. We’ll devise her perfect happily ever after or die trying. We just need to find her the perfect pair of shoes…
About the author
Melanie is a violinist (although at her best, she wasn’t as good as Matilda, even if they both performed roughly the same recital)
She has a fancy Ivy League MBA (although she’s not as good a businesswoman as Thérèse.)
She has run a marathon or two in her day (although she’s not nearly as athletic as Twilight.)
She’s nothing at all like Rosina, whom you don’t know yet. You’ll meet her in Viola Jokes, the 4th and final book in the Dortmund Quartet. Stay tuned!