"Music is Love in search of a word" - Sidney Lanier
Can you listen to music when you’re reading? Do you create a playlist when you’re writing a book to help you capture the atmosphere or emotions?
Confession: I don’t usually do either of these things, but when I was writing The Dress —possibly because I was writing about lace and weddings, I couldn’t get The Carpenters song, “We’ve Only Just Begun” out of my head! It has this line in it: “White lace and promises. A kiss for luck and we’re on our way.”
The line fit so perfectly with what I was writing that for a long time I thought of my book's title as, “White Lace and Promises”.
Earworms aside (sorry if you’ve now got that looping in your head); that got me thinking about how important music is in films—how it’s used to add to the story, enhance scenes, or evoke particular emotions.
So I thought I’d create a list of my top five songs that come to mind when I think about The Dress.
1) A Kind of Magic – Queen “The bell that rings inside your mind, it’s a challenging the doors of time”
The Dress is about magic (real and metaphorical) transcending the fabric of time. Writing about magic for the first time was so exciting and new for me and this song, with its fab lyrics, and written for the original Highlander movie, definitely has that "magical" ability to make you sing along to it whenever you hear it!
2) Masquerade - Phantom of the Opera “Masquerade! Paper faces on parade… Masquerade! Hide your face so that the world will never find you…”
Half my book is set in Venice 1615 at a masquerade ball and admittedly that makes it a couple of hundred years before the masquerade ball in the Phantom of the Opera, but I love this scene in the film version with Gerard Butler.
You can check it out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fvkAM1FOnAk
3) Sweet Dreams – Beyonce “You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare. Either way I, don’t wanna wake up from you”
I love the lyrics in this song and you’ll have to read The Dress to find out why my present-day characters Cait and Matthew start dreaming about Venice and Caterina and Matheo!
4) Fashion - David Bowie “Fashion! Turn to the left. Fashion! Turn to the right”
My present-day character Cait works at a museum like the Fashion Museum, Bath, putting together an exhibition on lace throughout history. She is completely charmed by a design for a lace dress hundreds of years old by lace-maker Caterina! I think it would be absolutely wonderful to work in a museum like this—up close and personal with all the different fashions through history.
5) We’ve Only Just Begun - The Carpenters “We’ve only just begun to live. White lace and promises. A kiss for luck and we’re on our way…”
The song that with one line made me think about wedding dresses and kisses and fired my imagination.
Confession: I don’t usually do either of these things, but when I was writing The Dress —possibly because I was writing about lace and weddings, I couldn’t get The Carpenters song, “We’ve Only Just Begun” out of my head! It has this line in it: “White lace and promises. A kiss for luck and we’re on our way.”
The line fit so perfectly with what I was writing that for a long time I thought of my book's title as, “White Lace and Promises”.
Earworms aside (sorry if you’ve now got that looping in your head); that got me thinking about how important music is in films—how it’s used to add to the story, enhance scenes, or evoke particular emotions.
So I thought I’d create a list of my top five songs that come to mind when I think about The Dress.
1) A Kind of Magic – Queen “The bell that rings inside your mind, it’s a challenging the doors of time”
The Dress is about magic (real and metaphorical) transcending the fabric of time. Writing about magic for the first time was so exciting and new for me and this song, with its fab lyrics, and written for the original Highlander movie, definitely has that "magical" ability to make you sing along to it whenever you hear it!
2) Masquerade - Phantom of the Opera “Masquerade! Paper faces on parade… Masquerade! Hide your face so that the world will never find you…”
Half my book is set in Venice 1615 at a masquerade ball and admittedly that makes it a couple of hundred years before the masquerade ball in the Phantom of the Opera, but I love this scene in the film version with Gerard Butler.
You can check it out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fvkAM1FOnAk
3) Sweet Dreams – Beyonce “You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare. Either way I, don’t wanna wake up from you”
I love the lyrics in this song and you’ll have to read The Dress to find out why my present-day characters Cait and Matthew start dreaming about Venice and Caterina and Matheo!
4) Fashion - David Bowie “Fashion! Turn to the left. Fashion! Turn to the right”
My present-day character Cait works at a museum like the Fashion Museum, Bath, putting together an exhibition on lace throughout history. She is completely charmed by a design for a lace dress hundreds of years old by lace-maker Caterina! I think it would be absolutely wonderful to work in a museum like this—up close and personal with all the different fashions through history.
5) We’ve Only Just Begun - The Carpenters “We’ve only just begun to live. White lace and promises. A kiss for luck and we’re on our way…”
The song that with one line made me think about wedding dresses and kisses and fired my imagination.
The Dress by Eve Devon, contained within the Magical Weddings box-set: Venice, 1615 and instead of the man her father wants her to marry, lacemaker Caterina dreams of Matheo. But when she dabbles with magical lace, she falls foul of the ruling family, altering not only her destiny, but Matheo’s too, and now imprisoned, Caterina must design a way to entwine their fates again.
England, 2015 and when Cait bumps into Matthew, back from his travels for their friends’ wedding, the spark between them flares instantly. But is it another case of the right place at the wrong time for this bridesmaid and best man, or can a dress from Cait’s lace exhibition at the Museum of Fashion weave its magic through the fabric of time, and unite their destinies, too?
England, 2015 and when Cait bumps into Matthew, back from his travels for their friends’ wedding, the spark between them flares instantly. But is it another case of the right place at the wrong time for this bridesmaid and best man, or can a dress from Cait’s lace exhibition at the Museum of Fashion weave its magic through the fabric of time, and unite their destinies, too?
You can buy the box-set Magical Weddings right now for only 99cents/99pence
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/MagicalWeddings
B&N: http://bit.ly/1dAAdtJ
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1SrS6us
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1emycBp
iTunes/Apple: http://apple.co/1RcL2Ai
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/MagicalWeddings
B&N: http://bit.ly/1dAAdtJ
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1SrS6us
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1emycBp
iTunes/Apple: http://apple.co/1RcL2Ai
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