Musical Monday and a Cyber Monday bundle deal

 

Fall is all about the rockstars for me, what with the Rocktoberfest series winding down for the year and the holiday books beginning to release. Music has always been my first love, from the moment I learned what a melody was, I've learned to hum, sing along with the radio, and sing horribly in the car when the radio stations do far too much talking and far too little playing of music. My favorite birthday present of all time remains the guitar I received the year I turned fourteen. I still have it, it is still my go to practice guitar when I have the itch to play, and it's still the one I pull out when I'm feeling inspired enough to try my hand at songwriting the way I have for each of my rockstar books. 

Each of the lyrics contained inside, even when the characters are still playing around trying to capture the sound they are after, is one that I've written specifically for that book, that band, and usually the situations going on within the book, but the thing that most people don't know about my rockstar romance books is that each one has been inspired by one particular song. It might be the theme, it might be a line, or it might just be the mood the song invoked, which translated into the vibe of the book while I was working on it. Sometimes, that singular song winds up being the one that I play on repeat in the early stages of the writing or even the 'collecting underpants' phase where I'm still trying to capture the feel of the characters and their storyline and making notes on all the elements that I'd like to sprinkle throughout the book. It's an awesome way to slip into the storytelling zone too, where everything else fades away almost completely and all of my focus is dialed in to what the characters are telling me. 

For last year's Rocktoberfest novel, Bleeding Dawn, my focus song was Far Away by Nickleback. One of the reasons it resonated so much with me in regards to that book was because of the yearning that Tripp has to stop the world and both of their careers and just have a season in time to spend with Zakk and discover if the passion that flares between them whenever they meet up on the road is something that they could sustain in the long run. 

Far Away: 

Both men are members of high-profile bands who have been touring and making music for well over a decade. The problem is that they are only in the same place a handful of times a year. Tripp would give anything for some downtime, where they can just melt into obscurity and be anyone but who they are when they climb up onto the stage. He's starting to feel like the heat of the desert road is burning him alive and that all of those pent-up emotions, as well as the tension between him and his brother, is going to consume him. Would be so easy to slip off across the sand and melt into a dune on the back of some strange, psychedelic serpent, never to be heard from again. The only thing he wants to make sure of first is that Zakk will be there beside him for the ride, no matter how wild it gets or how far it goes. 

Zakk's feelings about being away for too long and the way their schedules mean that they are constantly waiting for each other, longing for each other, brooding, miserably missing the sound of the other's voice and pulling up each other's music through streaming stations just to feel a little closer to the one they're thinking about, are all rolled up in Far Away and I played it so much that by the time the book was finished, I could sing every word of that song. At times a difficult story to write, Bleeding Dawn is one part redemption, one part love story and one part forged families, because to me, that's what the bands in this story truly are. They are a family because they've worked hard to mesh not just musically, but personally, so that when it's time to create together, it's a fun and joyful experience, not one to be looked on with dread because now someone has to deal with people they'd rather not be working with. I hope you'll check out their story and the other novels in the bundle, to see if they'll fit your rock n' roll needs. 

As for Halfway to Someday, that book was hard for a different reason. Jesse Winters, lead guitarist of Wild Child, a band also mentioned in Bleeding Dawn, has not been having a good year and the main reason for that is a relationship that has gone sideways. At the start of the novel, he's taken refuge in a cabin in the mountains and he's trying to decide whether or not to give up his career or, in loo of walking away from music completely, leaving his band and going solo somewhere he can do it all digitally and never have to show his face on a stage again. He's got an ex who can't take the hint, secrets he isn't ready to share, and so many regrets that it's hard for him to sort them out sometimes. The last thing he expected was his bandmate's cousin showing up at the same cabin Jesse has secluded himself in. He's not prepared for the concern that Ryker shows him, or the feels that begin to emerge when they are left snowed in and stranded, with a stalker lurking nearby.  

It's funny, but when I first started to work on the story, I was listening to a lot of Black Label Society and there were actually two songs that I kept coming back to over and over and wound up looping because they so perfectly fit the emotions that I was hoping to capture. Of the three books, it has the most angst and ugly cry moments, but it also had so many magical moments when Ryker and Jesse came together to be the shoulder the other needed to lean on. While there were at times when it seemed like each song reflected each of the main characters, the deeper I got into the book, the more I realized that they each fit both Jesse and Ryker at different points of the book, and it was in those moments that they really came through for each other. 

The Day That Heaven Had Gone Away

Scars

For the final book, Desolation Angel, which was actually the first of the three written, it was old school hair metal that I went back to time and time again, and among those songs, there was one standout and that was Whitesnake's Here I Go Again. Dare was such a unique character, because for the most part, music is the only real life he had. He dreams up the songs, getting lost in moments of creation where the outside world fades away so bad that the only thing he can hear is the songs that roll through his head. He's struggling against it, and the fact that he feels like that's the only thing he can have, not love, not real-life moments like learning to drive or going on proper dates, just the songs the universe gives him and the lost time when he zones out so bad he can't even remember not to burn dinner. What he experiences isn't a typical kind of zoning out, there are several factors at play, and part of the joy of writing this book was getting to explore the ways they could be dealt with in a positive manner that helped Dare come to see that 'normal' was subjective and that he didn't have to change himself to be loved. 

If you're curious about my rockstars and their stories, I've got a unique sale going on right now through payhip that would allow you to get all three: Rockstar Romance Bundle

Best wishes and Rock On!