Soul of the Cellist

Always a rock for her mom, cellist Hannah Staples has just discovered her phone is loaded with spyware and a tracker-and her creepy stepdad is the one tracking her. Within forty-eight hours, a horrified Hannah ends up losing her home, her family, and her security. All that's left is her cello-and custody of her younger brother. Terrified and ashamed, Hannah reaches out to the rest of the Castleton String Quartet and the other members of the Hartwell music community.


Hannah's longtime crush, tenor Enrique Almendarez, never really noticed Hannah until now. Seeing her distress, he hungers to do anything to protect her, whether it's helping her move, finding community service work for her brother, or maybe taking her out to dinner. Her family's always kept her from starting a relationship. Well, maybe now is the time. Maybe Enrique can be the one to show Hannah how a real man treasures the ones he loves.

As the bombshells detonate in Hannah's life, she starts to redefine what family means. Letting Enrique into her heart means letting herself trust when everyone in her life has proven themselves untrustworthy, but trust is hard to earn and easy to lose.

In this second story of the Castleton String Quartet, Maddie Evans takes us deep into how the families we came from shape the families we build.