PLAYLISTS

Music sets the mood while I’m writing. It influences the story and helps me bring my characters to life. Here are playlists of the songs that inspired me as I wrote my books.

Bend

Click for the whole playlist on Spotify

• Gray Or Blue by Jaymay (Spotify | YouTube)
• The Scientist by Coldplay (Spotify | YouTube)
• Demons by Imagine Dragons (Spotify | YouTube)
• Hard Sun by Eddie Vedder (Spotify | YouTube)
• Feeling Good by Avicii (Spotify | YouTube)
• Ghosts That We Knew by Mumford & Sons (Spotify | YouTube)
• We Are Young by Fun. (Spotify | YouTube)
• Save the Last Dance by The Drifters (Spotify | YouTube)
• Weighty Ghost by Wintersleep (Spotify | YouTube)
• Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash (Spotify | YouTube)
• Ballad Of Fuck All by Malcolm Middleton (Spotify | YouTube)
• Can’t Help Falling In Love by Ingrid Michaelson (Spotify | YouTube)

"I’m gripping the steering wheel and staring unseeing at the dashboard, steeling myself. A melancholy Mumford & Sons song is playing on the stereo, the lyrics about love and sadness and death. It fits my mood exactly."

Jay

Mend

Click for the whole playlist on Spotify

• White Wedding by Whip (Spotify | YouTube)
• All Over Now by Eric Hutchinson (Spotify | YouTube)
• Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson (Spotify | YouTube)
• Kiss by Prince (Spotify | YouTube)
• Skinny Love by Bon Iver (Spotify | YouTube)
• Mess is Mine by Vance Joy (Spotify | YouTube)
• California Stars by Billy Bragg & Wilco (Spotify | YouTube)
• Way Down We Go by Kaleo (Spotify | YouTube)
• Unsteady by X Ambassadors (Spotify | YouTube)
• Carry On by Fun. (Spotify | YouTube)
• Say Something by A Great Big World (Spotify | YouTube)
• Empty by Ray LaMontagne (Spotify | YouTube)
• Love You, Love A Riddle by Pepper Proud (Spotify | YouTube)

The song ends and another one begins with a funky and familiar guitar riff, followed by a fast and peppy beat, and then comes Prince’s unmistakable falsetto singing the first lines of “Kiss.” This has to be a joke. My chest heavy and heaving, I try not to let it affect me, the sexy rhythm that’s begging me move my hips, to bump and grind.

Paige