Original Sin Playlist!

You guys want to know what inspired Original Sin? As with Personal Demons, it was music! I’m often asked if I have playlists for my books, and the truth is, my playlists turn into books. I start with the music. My playlist for each book is usually a couple of dozen songs, which I pare down to the 12-15 that were most instrumental and post them for all of you to enjoy. You can see the entire playlist for Personal Demons here. :p

If there’s a song that brings strong emotion to the surface for me, I often see it play out in the lives of my characters. In the Personal Demons series, you can see the evolution of the characters by the song that embodies them in each of the books.

For example, Frannie. In Original Sin, she’s coming to grips with her new powers, but she can’t protect everyone she loves, and someone will pay the ultimate price. Her song from Original Sin is How to Save a Life by the Fray.

Next we have my most conflicted character: Gabe. In Personal Demons, Gabe finds himself in a position he’s never been in before: questioning his purpose. But, with Frannie, the lines between duty and desire blur, and he struggles with basic questions of love and loyalty. Things for Gabe step up a notch in Original Sin. There’s a sub-current of desperation in everything he does. He vows to always be there for Frannie, no matter what, but what if keeping that promise means risking everything? His song from this book is Breaking Benjamin’s Anthem of the Angels.

And, then there’s Luc. He is the most “changed” character in Personal Demons. Things don’t go smoothly for Luc in Original Sin. That’s all I’m gonna say about that. Unfortunately for Luc, his experience in OS is perfectly summarized in the music and lyrics to World So Cold by Three Days Grace. 

And, the official Original Sin Playlist...



As usual, if you love any of these songs, please visit your chosen mode of music purchase and buy them =)

Original Sin Music Preview and Teaser #23

My muse is a wannabe rockstar. All the emotional energy in my books comes from music. I find when I get stuck in my writing, it’s because I don’t have the proper musical inspiration. When I find the song that sparks just the right emotion in me, the scene flows.

With all of my novels, each character has an overriding musical inspiration. This is the one song that embodies them as a character in that particular novel. So today, to celebrate release two months from tomorrow, in addition to our next teaser, I’m going to give you a sneak peek at Original Sin through its music.

First, the teaser. As always, there are sparks between Frannie and Luc. Here’s a scene when he stops by her house.

#OriginalSin p60 Frannie: Luc looks crazy hot in a blue button-down, one tail untucked and laying over black jeans. “You look…” and I can’t finish. There’s not a word. “Nice shirt.”

“It’s the color of your eyes,” he says and stops my heart.

And now the music…

Personal Demons was on the dark side, but Original Sin is darker. The music that was running through my head while I wrote was very dark and angsty for all three main characters.

Gabe is my most conflicted character. He has never before found himself in the position of questioning his purpose. But, with Frannie, the lines between duty and desire blur, and he struggles with basic questions of love and loyalty. He vows to always be there for her, no matter what, but what if keeping that promise means risking everything? In Original Sin, the song that embodies this is Anthem of the Angels by Breaking Benjamin.

Luc is the character who goes through the most change. As Personal Demons ends, he’s pretty sure of what he wants, but getting it and figuring out how to keep it are two different things. And when outside forces intervene, things don’t go exactly how he planned. His song from Original Sin is World So Cold by Three Days Grace.

And, Frannie. She finds herself caught between two worlds. She’s trying to hold onto a normal life, but her life is anything but normal. Hell won’t give up and Heaven won’t give in, and some people dear to Frannie get caught in the middle. Her song from Original Sin is How to Save a Life by The Fray.

If you get a chance to read OS, you can tell me if you hear these songs in the story.

Sneak Peek at the Original Sin Playlist

I've posted more than once about how important music is to my Muse. I hear people describe writer's block in all different ways, but speaking for myself, the only time I struggle with a scene is if my Muse is missing musical inspiration. Music is so important that I feel compelled to include the artists of the two or three most influential songs in the acknowledgements at the back of each book.

Initially, I took a bit of an unconventional approach and wrote a good chunk of my playlist right into Personal Demons. There were 17 songs embedded into the text. My agent and editor helped me see the error in my ways, however, and that got pared down to maybe eight songs in the finished book. The thing is, I fall so in love with my playlist, that I can’t stand not sharing it—because I want you to love the songs and the story as much as me. In Personal Demons, Nickelback, Savin’ Me was the inspiration for Luc. The themes in that song drove all his decisions and everything that happens to him from page one. For Frannie, whose overriding theme was her struggle with her belief, or lack thereof, in God and love, the song was The Fray, You Found Me. For Gabe, who struggles with his role of protector the inspiration was Ryan Star’s Breathe. You can click the characters names for their individual stories and to hear the songs, or you can hear the entire Personal Demons playlist here.

I just built my Original Sin playlist over on Playlist.com so I can eventually share it with all of you. After listening to it for months during the writing and revising of Original Sin, I’d long since moved on to my The Novel Formerly Known as Hellbent playlist. I’d forgotten how totally off-the-scale amazing the Original Sin playlist was until I just listened to it again. In my first draft of Original Sin there were 18 songs embedded in the text (most of which have been edited out). This book has a lot of dark themes (even more so than Personal Demons) and some pretty terrible stuff happens.

 Because I’m obsessing over this playlist and can’t wait to share it, and also because ARCs are starting to go out and theses songs are in the acknowledgements, here are the main songs from Original Sin.

From Luc’s perspective, the song that shapes the story is Three Days Grace, World So Cold. The feel of the song is perfect and every single lyric is spot on.

From Frannie’s perspective it’s The Fray, How to Save a Life. (She’s a Fray girl, what can I say.) And that’s all I can say without spoiling… (I'm so far gone I just started crying watching this O_O)

Gabe is probably the most conflicted character throughout the series. For Original Sin, the song that embodies this is Anthem of the Angels by Breaking Benjamin.

As always, if you love these songs, please visit your chosen mode of music purchase and buy them.

These songs carry over through the entire novel then, within individual scenes, more specific songs apply, and they’re written in where that could be done seamlessly. Full playlist to come...