Melodie Murray
Works In Progress
At the Edge
(complete at 89,000 words and seeking agent representation)
One second doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to shatter a dream.
One second is what leaves nineteen-year-old swimmer, Tess Avery, grasping at the lane wall and staring at a second-place spot on the scoreboard, again. Her last shot at a first-place medal to earn a scholarship to her dream college is only weeks away.
What Tess needs is a qualified coach and a new training strategy. What she doesn’t need is Gilbert James’ smart mouth and incessant flirting, but he’s got a trophy record in her swim stroke and offers to help, so she’ll take what she can get. However, Tess finds working with Gilbert surprisingly enjoyable, and her swimming improves under his coaching. She’s finally ready to compete, but as race day approaches, her town is ravaged by a devastating flood.
Tess and Gilbert join the relief efforts, but when Gilbert jumps into raging waters to save two trapped teenagers, the unforgiving current threatens to claim his life. Tess is left with one second to find a way to save the man she's grown to love. Even if doing so risks her dream and her life.
Escape to Equador
(writing in progress)
To twenty-three-year-old, Maggie Arnold, being organized and having a plan holds equal importance with things like water, food, and oxygen. The current plan is to marry her fiance, buy a Pinterest-worthy home, and have two kids and three dogs. But her plan implodes when she finds her fiance with another woman.
Months later, Maggie's best friend suggests she join her on a summer mission trip to Equador where they'll travel by canoe, live in huts, and help build a schoolhouse for a tribe of indegenous people. Maggie's gut reaction is to laugh, but she hasn't done that in so long she's nearly forgotten how. Maybe an adventure is exactly what she needs.
Once in Equador, Maggie is met with many challenges, one of those being the handsome civil engineer who's stationed there permanently. Another is navigating the ongoing vandalism to the tribe's food supply caused by a feud among the tribesmen over whether or not to sell their protected land to oil miners.
Maggie's plan is to keep to herself and avoid the tribal drama, but when she stumbles upon information that could expose the identity of the vandal, she must choose between sticking with the plan or endangering her own life to save the livelihood of the people she's come to love.
Self Published Work
Purchase on Amazon at
https://a.co/d/blCV2V8
Redemption Song
When seventeen-year-old pop sensation, Ethan Carter, drives drunk and almost kills a man, his livid mother pulls the plug on all things celebrity. Banished to his granny’s house on the Alabama coastline, Ethan is subjected to an extreme dose of normal.
Ethan views normal as a synonym for boring, but things take a turn when he meets Alaina, the spunky Christian from Granny’s church. With her brutal honesty and complete disregard for his rock-star status, Alaina is beautifully different, and for the first time, Ethan is finding it very difficult to get what he wants.
The closer Ethan and Alaina become, the more obstacles come between them. As Ethan’s punishment draws to a close, he knows a decision is inevitable. He can return to the life of his dreams, or he can leave it all behind for Alaina. Maybe normal's not so boring, after all.