Tag Archives: Books and Music

Special Guest: Colleen Isolde on Characters and Music

My darlings! Please bear with me, as we welcome Colleen to ALBTALBS! In fact, we should be seeing more of her, because she’s going to be sharing reviews here as well! Whee! (I just need to, you know, get on that.) Also let’s pretend this puts me on schedule. As you know, the third Saturday of each month I feature a reader from the community. In June, because June is awesome, we have a special reader guest each month! So everyone say hi to Colleen! <3

Characters and Music by Colleen Isolde

For many writers as well as readers, music plays a role either providing background to work or inspiring characters. Recently on twitter, author Pamela Clare requested love songs to help with her writing of a love scene for her next book in her I-Team Series. Author Tina Reber lists her musical playlists on her website for the books in her Love Series. Following authors on twitter and facebook often provide readers with an idea of what music is inspiring particular stories or parts of stories. That being said, not all authors list songs or playlists or even listen to music while the write, however as readers, we can still find music that reminds us of particular characters.

I am a huge Jessica Scott fan. I love her characters and found that two in particular seem to keep popping into my head months after reading Because of You. When I first started listening to Pink’s new album “The Truth About Love” and I first heard her song “Blow Me (One Last Kiss),” I immediately thought of Laura. I even tweeted to Jessica Scott at the time that I could totally see Laura singing this song while driving in her car or while doing housework.

I also ran across a video dub created by some soldiers in Afghanistan mimicking the actions of the Miami Dolphins’ cheerleaders video dub to Carly Rae Jepsen’s song “Call Me Maybe.” In this video, I see Vic Carponti as the ginger soldier with the beard and ringleader behind making this video. Of course now, every time I hear this song, I think of Carponti.

The song “About Today” by The National makes me think of a soundtrack for Ryan’s life in Ranae Rose’s Battered Not Broken. Some of this may have to do with the fact that this song appears on the “Warrior” soundtrack starring the sexy Tom Hardy, but I think it mostly has to do with the struggle that I see Ryan having in terms of adjusting to civilian life.

How about you? Do you find certain music to remind you of particular characters in books you read or do you find yourself thinking of music that certain characters may listen to?