In about a day and a half, I will start my first historical romance project in…a while. Can a thing feel scary and like coming home at the same time? Apparently, yes. I don’t know very much about the story I have given a working title of Love in a Northern Town, (will definitely change that title. Stories usually tell me their names when they are ready.) because one of the very first things I knew about it was that it would take place in the Noth of England, a setting I haven’t written in yet. Why? Well, why not? It’s not like I haven’t done that before.

Once upon a time, I sat in the kitchen of a pair of dear friends, both musicians, who were off tuning their tunes, while I dog/apartment sat and figured I could use the time to double as a writing retreat. I wrote the start of what would eventually become Orphans in the Storm, which I hope to rerelease in the near future. I knew exactly nothing about the Isle of Man, but that wasn’t the setting I picked; it was the setting. Writer friends, you know what that means. Research. It means research.

Manx flag and motto right there. Translated from the Manx (because they have their own language and if you think that meant I had to figure out what kind of grammar a native Manx speaker would use if English was their second language, you are right.) in the modern vernacular, whichever way you throw me, I stand. If you are guessing that such a translation slammed into me with a physical force, you are also right. Yes. There she was, my Manx-raised British heroine, Jonnet, torn from the only home she knew and summoned to the faraway Court in Exile of Charles II at the end of the English Civil War. Torn off every mooring she’d ever thought she had, she found her own footing, and most unexpectedly of all, love.

The motto applies as well to her hero, Simon, a king’s man if there ever was one, determined to do whatever it took to do his part in restoring the rightful king to his throne. Simon wasn’t only patriotic, but also wanted to do his beloved father proud, which meant that I listened to a lot of Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying,” because that was Simon’s dad’s song, full stop. I’m not in charge of these things.

For Simon, the theme song was “Superman,” by Five For Fighting. Oh Simon, Simon, Simon, always wanting to do the right thing, even if it hurts. Maybe especially then. Simon has issues.

As for Jonnet, I didn’t know at first that I had a song for her, but as soon as I decided I needed to know, boom, there it was. “Time After Time,” by Cyndi Lauper. I picked the isolated vocals version because that suited Jonnet best, raised in isolation, where she developed bone-deep loyalty and resilience that served her well.

I loved writing this book. Loved less learning that I had actually sold it during caregiver brain fog and had less than a month to submit my final-final copy, when the computer I had at the time munched all of my files. Thankfully, I had backups, in my longstanding writing gtoup, so I called in every scrap of paper I gave them, and spent hours on the office floor, piecing together the whole book from scratch. My dear sister-friend, Kathleen Underwood, who was a fabulously talented graphic artist turned my babblings and a handful of separate images into the exact moment when Jonnet first spots the ship that has come to take her from her home and into her destiny, with that same gut punch of “yes, that’s it!” as mentioned about above songs. Kathleen, whom friends called Kady, is no longer with us, but I will forever treasure this straight out of my brain to her screen piece of art.

One hundred percent, if she were still with us, I would have her mockup of a cover for this new story on my desk, to draw inspiration. I don’t have anything like that on hand, and I want it, so I will have to see what my limited collage skills can do. What I can do, though, is start a playlist, I have a playlist for all of my stories. Well, each. They all get their own. It doesn’t matter that this new story (not sure I even want to refer to it as LIAT until I know its name, but one has to call the new baby something) takes place in the first half of the eighteenth century (the Augustan era, a term I was last week years old when I discovered, and mainly refers to literature, but I felt the gut punch of reognition, so that’s the setting, yep) so nobody in this story would know about Frank Sinatra, trains, or even lemonade, but the phrase, “life in a northern town” and the heartbeat-like vocalization that’s just sounds and not words (music people, help- I know this isn’t scat, but what’s the hey hey ahh ma ma ma part called?)

As for Davy’s heroine, Julia, she hasn’t told me her song yet. She’s trying to keep a low profile, so I don’t blame her. Gently reared London gal, taking a job so far up north it’s basically the other side of the border, to avoid the repercussions of some bad family decisions (but piece of cake compared to the bad family decisions she lands smack in the middle of, oopsie.) Maybe something by Mary Chapin Carpenter? My heroines generally like Mary Chapin Carpenter. I’ll get back to you on that. In the meantime, if you’re a writer are you doing Camp NaNo? If you’re a reader, what’s the best gut punch of a book you ever read?