Heart Strings (Love in Galway, 2) - Softcover

Buch 2 von 3: A Love in Galway Novel

Fairbanks, Ivy

 
9780593851883: Heart Strings (Love in Galway, 2)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593851889 ISBN 13: 9780593851883
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A sizzling exes-to-lovers second- chance romance from the author of Morbidly Yours, the “sweet, spicy, and fabulous” (Abby Jimenez, #1 New York Times bestselling author) TikTok sensation

She doesn’t do second chances. But he's not done writing their song.

Cielo “Lo” Valdez doesn’t believe in second chances. Surviving cancer taught her life is too short to spend time on someone who wronged you. But Aidan O’Toole is determined to show her life is best spent together.

When the tough-as-nails Texan moved to Galway for medical school, she wasn’t looking for love. Aidan, a gorgeous, tattooed, mandolin-playing lawyer, slipped past her defenses. They each fell hard and fast. But when Aidan was given the opportunity of a lifetime—to move to London and record an album—he took it, breaking Lo's heart. Yet more than two years and a successful album later, every song he writes is still about her, the one he let get away. And every time Lo hears his voice on the radio singing about love, it’s an arrow straight to her soul.

Now they’re on a collision course as maid of honor and best man at a weekend-long Irish castle wedding. Are some mistakes worth forgiving? Can Aidan convince Lo their song wasn’t meant to end?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ivy Fairbanks is the author of Morbidly Yours and Heart Strings, and a shameless consumer of rom-com books, hazelnut coffee, and Hozier music. Not necessarily in that order. Living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome has made her a believer in the importance of representation in romance. Fairbanks writes stories where realistic characters find love, acceptance, and their happily-ever-afters. She lives in the Tampa Bay area with her husband and son. At any given moment, she is probably trapped under a sleeping tabby cat.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Aidan

September

"You're listening to Today's Top Forty live from London. This morning, we are joined in the studio by breakout Irish singer-songwriter Aidan O'Toole. You might know him from the summer smash 'Come Here to Me,' which hit number three on the Irish charts and number twenty on UK Billboard. Welcome to the show, Aidan."

Adjusting my headphones, I lean close to the mic. "Thanks for having me. I've been a longtime fan."

"Please tell our listeners a bit about yourself. You were raised in County Cork, adopted by Galway."

"Yes! I'm sure they're happy to claim you," her co-host interjects with a hand on my arm. Her cheeks pinken when I flash a smile.

"I live here in London now. Galway is where my family is, though, and I'm heading back there for a month. Leaving London tomorrow, actually."

"We hate to see you go . . ."

Don't worry, I think, it won't be permanent.

"Let's talk about Heaven-Bound," the main host says. "It's been nominated for the RTÉ Choice Music Prize."

"And well-deserved! It's so heartfelt."

"Thank you. It still hasn't sunk in, really, but it's such an honor."

I adjust the collar of the designer button-down the label's stylist asked me to wear today. Being dressed by someone else makes me feel like a paper doll.

"On the album, there's an arc of hope, of ecstasy, of loss," the host opines. "Honestly, I can't listen to that last song without getting a little lump in my throat."

"Tell me about it!" the other host jumps in. "The first time I listened, I ruined the eye makeup I was trying to apply because I couldn't stop crying but I didn't want to turn it off. Which gave me flashbacks of my Sufjan Stevens phase."

They share a quick chuckle.

"You're too kind," I say. "To even be mentioned in the same breath as an artist like Sufjan . . ."

"Really, it captured heartbreak so vividly," the first one adds. "And now the whole music world wants to know, who is this Irishman and who did he write these songs about?"

"Yes, are they all about the same muse? The songs seem too personal to simply be about character archetypes. You write about the different facets of love so well."

"I fall in love all the time," I lie. "I've fallen in love hundreds of times. Lyrics come easier when I have the right inspiration."

In the past, I'd fall fast, although admittedly, never deep. Not until Cielo. She made me realize those passing fascinations and lust hadn't been love at all. Two years after our separation, I still catch myself looking for glimmers of her in strangers. Sometimes I even realize I've been subconsciously scanning the front row, seeking her smoky hazel eyes so I can sing directly to her.

I haven't been truly in love with anyone before or since Lo.

"Your lyrics have been described as 'poignantly provocative.' How does it feel to hear that about your songwriting?" The interviewer keeps a straight face, but she's slowly crossing her legs while she stares at me.

"It's certainly flattering." Regardless of how the journalists and DJs goad me, I've no literary degree, and no interest in academically dissecting the sexual themes of my own songs during an interview. The music speaks for itself.

"Well, I'm sure your latest muse is very lucky."

I fidget with the spiral cord of the headphones. We're broadcasting live across the UK right now, and they want to bring up my ex-girlfriend, approaching the taboo subject deliberately because that's what listeners theorize about.

"I appreciate that, but I'm afraid a lad's got to keep some things to himself," I answer with a wink.

According to my manager, Martin, keeping tight-lipped will add to my "mystique." The label wants me to cultivate a slightly edgy image. More important, without details on my past relationship, fans can imagine themselves in my songs. A woman all but worshipped by a man, but the two destined to permanently part ways before the last reprise. In some songs, he is a warrior fighting for her. A fool. A lover. In my latest single, he is a marionette, strings pulled in every direction until he is drawn and quartered. But in every song, she is a goddess. Every woman, Martin argues, wants to be loved like that. Loved so hard that her memory alone will drive a man to rip himself apart.

And that's what I've done for the past year while touring for Heaven-Bound. Night after night, city after city: I tear myself open for an audience and enjoy a collective catharsis as we share in that emotion four minutes at a time. And I wonder if Cielo is listening.


“Christ! You’re pure style,” I say when Fionn answers the front door of our parents’ house wearing a Fair Isle jumper in red and white, Cork’s colors, with Gaelic footballs knit across his chest. He refuses to adopt the Galway jersey.

"Why are you knocking? It's weird and you'll offend Mam."

Although I bought this house, I've never lived here. Entering without knocking wouldn't feel right. Everyone else insists it's weirder that I don't simply let myself in through the back door.

"What is that abomination you're wearing?" I ask.

"Mam has gotten into patterns lately."

Garish but well-made knitwear is nothing compared to our seventeen-year-old sister's hobby of ventriloquism. Nine months ago, when I'd last visited, Marie brought out two horrific dummies while my da silently begged me not to say anything negative. Their wooden grins made my skin crawl. So of course, Fionn and Marie teamed up to place them in unexpected spots during my visit. I nearly soiled myself stumbling to the bathroom on Christmas morning half-asleep, only to come face-to-face with the soulless eyes of one perched on the toilet. Marie, with her angelic smile that has Mam and Da fooled, was the mastermind behind that prank.

My family's new place is two stories tall and a short walk from a waterfront park. A far cry from the peeling paint and leaking roof of the cottage I was raised in back in Cork, and an even larger departure from the dodgy council flat my family had squeezed into when they first moved to Galway to be closer to Marie's specialist. After signing with the record label two years ago, one of my first orders of personal business was moving my parents out of that moldering flat. Even after selling our old house and with Da working two jobs, they could barely afford to rent in Galway, with Mam staying home to care for Marie. I'd put my musical ambitions on the back burner then, in favor of a more stable job as a solicitor so I could help out. It feels good to provide for my family.

Mam wordlessly wraps her arms tight around me and gives me a good shake.

Still in his work clothes from the warehouse where he drives a forklift, Da rises from the battered old recliner he's had since I was a boy and claps me on the back. "Good to have you home."

"Aye. Missed you, Da."

Marie bolts down the stairs, prompting Ma to shout, "No running!"

She tackles me with surprising strength for a teenage girl.

"Well, then. Nice to see you, too." I muss her pixie cut and take a step back to observe the subtle changes since I was here for Christmas. She'd started the new year by chopping seven inches of hair, pleased that it was finally long enough to donate to a wig-making charity. "The jumper's lovely, too."

Bright purple knitwear adorned with clowns and elephants swallows up her torso. Marie lost interest in elephants back in third grade and has never shown an affinity for the circus. "Oh, just you wait."

"I've got a surprise for you!" Mam says. "Fionn, will you be a dear and go fetch your brother's gift from my room?"

The sparkle in Marie's eyes makes me uneasy as Fionn ascends the stairs and returns with a box. Mam eagerly gestures...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593851889
ISBN 13 
9780593851883
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
337
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Buchbär
info@buchbaer.de

Weberstr. 67
Osnabrück
49084
Deutschland

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