3 Chords and a Lie • Book Two

The Broken Compass

When desire takes the heart, fame devours the lost.

The coal dust has settled, but Danny Wallace is still chasing a song he cannot quite name. The first book pulled him out of the mines for a taste of his dream. The Broken Compass asks what happens when the road, the bottle, and the memories become pervasive, the antithesis of stability.

Set against the same Appalachian ridgelines and small town ghosts as Appalachian High - A Dreamer's Tale, this second book pushes Danny to decide what he is willing to lose to keep his music, and what he must finally face to keep his soul.

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The Broken Compass cover

Working cover - The Broken Compass

What The Broken Compass is really about

Appalachian High - A Dreamer's Tale introduced the dream. The Broken Compass explores the cost. This is a book about the moments when the crowd is gone, the guitar case is shut, and you are left with nothing but the echo of your own choices.

Home and history

Danny came back to a town that raised him and the memories he tried to outrun. New debts, new lust, old friends, and the mines replaced with industry humming near the mountain.

Faith and fallout

This time, it is not only the label or the bar owners he has to answer to. It is the people who believed in him when there was no spotlight at all. It is the man he thought he became, but lied to the world.

Music and mercy

The songs still come, sharper than ever. Some from the heart, some from the hand. The question is whether the music can carry grace, or if it will only keep reopening the same wounds.

A novel of loss, faith, and finding true north

When your only map is a broken compass

There is a point where every wanderer has to choose: keep one hand on the tiller and steer through the storm, or admit that something deeper has to break. Danny is standing at that point, guitar in hand, staring at a life he does not recognize.

  • A haunting return to the holler, the barrooms, and the backroads that made him.
  • Family reckonings that reach further than the mines or the stage lights.
  • Questions of faith, forgiveness, and what it means to come home on purpose.
3 Chords and a Lie is a trilogy. The Broken Compass carries the weight of an unpublished song: darker, truer, and closer to the bone.

3 Chords and a Lie

A trilogy of dreamers, ghosts, and grace

The Broken Compass sits in the middle of the arc, where the dream is no longer new and the truth cannot be ignored. Each book carries its own melody, but they belong to the same song. That song has 3 Chords and a Lie.

1

Appalachian High - A Dreamer's Tale

The dreamer leaves the mine and steps onto the stage. A story of leaving, chasing, and learning that the road is never as simple as the songs make it sound.

2

The Broken Compass

The dream has a body count now. The middle book carries the weight of consequence, repentance, and the perils of following a broken compass.

3

Devil to Pay

The closing chapter of 3 Chords and a Lie will answer the questions that The Broken Compass leaves hanging in the fog, like the last note that still has not resolved.

Stay in the loop as the story unfolds

If Appalachian High - A Dreamer's Tale hooked you, The Broken Compass is the volume you do not want to miss. Join the list and get updates on release dates, a sample chapter, and more as they are ready.

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