Riggs's lusty first novel follows an aspiring singer-songwriter in Nashville's booze-soaked music scene during the mid-2000s. Shortly after graduating from the University of Michigan, Alison "Al" Hunter takes a job working the door at a hip Nashville club called The Venue. On the surface, she seems to be having a good time scoring drinks, drugs, sex, and guest list spots, but underneath she's full of melancholy. Her old college flame Nick, lead singer of a buzzy new band, has pretty much moved on from her, and she's struggling to write songs after a disastrous open-mic performance a month earlier. The plot thickens when Nick shows up at The Venue one stormy night, though it leads to a predictable denouement concerning Al's determination to find her own voice. Riggs is best in her sardonic depictions of her protagonist's milieu, delineating Nashville's desperate strivers, hipster know-it-alls, and slick industry insiders, all of whom are outnumbered by the huge crowds that show up for cover bands ("People are suckers for nostalgia, for the VH1 days, for getting drunk with a purpose on an otherwise dreary night"). Music lovers will devour this. Agent: Andrianna deLone, CAA. (July)

Recent college graduate Alison works the door at The Venue in Nashville, when she's not partying with her roommate, Sloane, or trying to write her own songs. The Venue keeps her close to music and her rag-tag fellow staff, including bartender/drug-dealer/easy-hookup Colt and fellow door person Julien, who's always reading books and seeming very serious. The Venue also brings in acts like Flirtation Device, whose front man, Nick, is Alison's white-hot flame when they're in the same place, which is rare. Riggs' first novel is divided into four sides, like a double mixtape, and Alison includes several playlists, like "melodies that have been stuck in my head" and "songs so aching you can only listen to them once a year." Alison is a person in progress, floundering one minute and confident the next, and Nashville is her place: "the kind of place you come to be known--whatever that means to you." Readers should pick this up for its boozy, bluesy atmosphere; Riggs' well-wrought, insider-feeling Nashville music scene; and Alison's uber-confessional narration.