Just Shelby
Brooklyn James —
JUST SHELBY Guest Post — Book Playlist
As an author/singer-songwriter who draws as much inspiration
from songs in book writing as I do from books in songwriting, I think book
playlists are the greatest thing since self-publishing.
Ten years ago when we released our first novel, The Boots My Mother Gave Me,
it actually came with an original music soundtrack. An organic process, the
album was never intended to be a book soundtrack until we realized how well
they went together, how both were born out of a parallel creative moment in
time: a New Year’s resolution that I would process, heal, and come to terms
with an abusive childhood. Simultaneously working through those emotions in
both a novel and an album, it became apparent that not only were they created
together, they were meant to be together, one giving life to the other. In that
respect, Boots makes for a unique Audible
experience. A later novel we released, Just Not Ready Yet, had a bit
of a music angle as well, so we included a single by the same name for
streaming in the ebook version.
Just Shelby
certainly has a music theme as depicted on the cover. Although it doesn’t have
a soundtrack or single at the time of release, we are actively in studio
writing and producing a few singles/videos to release over the year 2021 that
were inspired by song/lyric snippets written for the book. Shelby is just not that into music. Music is one
of her mother’s triggers. In that sense music is basically forbidden in
Shelby’s home. Ace follows in his family’s tradition and in his father’s
footsteps as a miner, but he secretly lives for music. When Shelby discovers
that Ace plays, she finally hears music’s intoxicating melody and encourages
him to follow his calling, much to his father’s chagrin. This ultimately leads
to the discovery of a secret note square hidden in a handmade guitar for
eighteen years that thrusts Shelby and Ace into a precarious journey of their
roots brimming with music and betrayal. What role did Ace’s family play in
Shelby’s broken past?
The Just Shelby
playlist is representative of the friends-to-first-love dual POV narrative in
that it shuffles between male and female heavy songs, from folk to rock and
from somber to uplifting—the emotions of finding first love while finding
oneself. The setting being small town Appalachia, of course there are a few
bluegrass-infused tunes and one classical piece in Adagio for Strings, a poignant song within the novel itself when
Shelby and Ace experience the “cathartic passion” the arrangement so easily
induces. The Fray kick things off with Run
for Your Life, fitting for Shelby who runs for her future with hopes of
securing a college scholarship, a way out of her tumultuous small town life.
Mumford & Sons round things out with I
Will Wait, as coming of age—life, the future—threatens to send the young lovers
in opposite directions. Depicting that growing together can sometimes hurt
worse than growing apart…
Access the playlist on our YouTube
Channel. Once you have read Just
Shelby, let us know which songs you would add to the playlist. Thank you so
much for this opportunity to share our latest release with your community!
About the Author
