Sunday, May 26, 2013

Golden...The Song Tells the Story

I've always marveled at how songs can tell an entire story in just two or three minutes.  And sometimes, as I'm writing, I find a perfect song for that book...something that captures the feelings, or the settings or simply the heart of what I'm trying to say.  A song that tells the story.

Same Time Next Summer
While I was writing Same Time Next Summer I found that perfect song, Keri Noble's Piece of My Heart.  It captured that summertime feeling...the comings and goings.  That book became my first SuperRomance, and every time it shuffles onto my iPod, I'm immediately back there near Port Clinton, Ohio walking down the rocky shore.

I just bought the new Lady Antebellum album, Golden, and was listening to the title track as I drove across town.  I was captivated and I realized that their song WAS the story of A Walk Down the Aisle. If you take out the word "Witchita" and replace it with "Valley Ridge," it would be exact.

This was a bit backwards for me.  When I wrote Same Time Next Summer I listened to Piece of My Heart repeatedly.  A Walk Down the Aisle is going to be released in a week (June 1st!!!).  It's done. And yet, here it is in song form.  It's as if Lady A. read the book and put it into song form.

Colton's a farmer, a simple man he claims.  He's a man of few words.  He met Sophie and fell immediately.  He fell hard.

A Walk Down the Aisle
Sophie has a painful past.  She think she's put it behind her and that she's finally found someone who will never let her down.  Someone she can trust.  Someone who loves her unconditionally.  She lets her guard down and loves him whole heartedly in return.

Then her past returns...on her wedding day.

Colton feels betrayed that she had kept secrets from him.  Big secrets.

She feels betrayed that the one person she thought would always stand by her walked away.  And even when he walks back, she has a hard time believing that he won't leave again if she does something wrong or makes a mistake.  She'd opened herself up to him once, but she's afraid to try again.

I so loved writing this story.  In the first two books in the series (You Are Invited..., April Showers) we met Sophie and Colton and hopefully started to believe, just as the entire community of Valley Ridge does, that they're the perfect couple.  Their love is palpable.  Mattie and Finn, and Lily and Sebastian had to work so hard to get to the place Sophie and Colton fell into naturally.  When things fall apart, Valley Ridge is cheering them on as they try to get beyond their mistakes and their pasts in order to rediscover what everyone always knew about them...that they're perfect together.

So, when you've read the story, turn on Lady A's Golden and let me know what you think.

Speaking of reading, let me thank you all for picking up the first two books in the trilogy.  I've loved hearing from you all and hope you feel that this third book is the proper ending for the trilogy.  But it's not the end of Valley Ridge.  Maeve's story will be out in December in A Valley Ridge Christmas!

Holly


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