Music of Kootenai

I love music. 

I love listening to it.

I pretend that I can make it. 

I enjoy singing in the shower and terrifying the neighbors with my failed attempt to hit the high-notes. 

Music and books to hand in hand for me. As a kid, I’d sit in far away corners with a pile of books and my discman, hiding away in my own world while my family spent the day competing and coaching at swim meets. The music blocked out the sounds of chaos around me and transported me to the Magic Treehouse, Hogwarts, and Narnia. 

Music continues to transport me. But now it’s to my own worlds. I have Spotify playlists for everything, and I want to share them. 

Most of the early writing of Tooth and Claw came in snippets of scenes with no real characters or plot. The life and times of Aster Lee Fields were strewn about in my Stories>Paranormal>Urban Fantasy>Werewolves>Shifters folders in my gdrive. 

Side note: I might have to do a blog post about the ridiculousness that is my google drive subfolder system. 

I had a snippet of a scene of a wolf staring at another wolf before biting its leg off. I had another snippet of an exile, a mating ceremony, and a kidnapping. None of them really came together until Barns Courtney’s Glitter and Gold came over on a different playlist’s radio. 

I was obsessed. 

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I listened to the song three or four times before going to the album and listening to it three or four times. Then I had a meeting, because hello day job. While pretending to be interested in a meeting that could have been an email, the driving bass beat and soulful songs blended in my head, and Tooth and Claw was born. 

Rapidly I started a new playlist based on songs that fit the bluesy soulful, driving rhythm beat. 

After I published Tooth and Claw in September, I continued to listen to the Kootenai playlist radio at work, because hello, total bangers but the songs were mellow enough I didn’t end up bursting into song (which had been a problem in the past. Sorry again to my former coworkers). 

Jennifer’s arc in Ghost Eyes can be 100% linked to the emotional connection I felt listening to Rhonda Vincent’s cover of Jolene by Dolly Parton. It was such a key part to how I viewed Jen’s emotional arc, I even kept in the scene where she listens to the song. 

In a previous post I linked the Ghost Eyes Roadtrip playlist, which I listened to when writing most of Jen’s scenes in Ghost Eyes. 

Now to the song that inspired me to walk down memory lane of the Kootenai playlist. 

Back in October 2019, I was tap tapping away at Ghost Eyes and I needed to actually write Jackson’s mate. I had every intention of making her a side character at best. 

Then I heard Brandi Carlile’s Raise Hell. The song starts out fast-paced and (I’ll be honest I didn’t hear the lyrics the first verse the first time I listened to it.) Then the song took a sudden down strum. Better men have hit their knees. A back beat. And bigger men have died. 

I started the song over right then. And again, I missed 99% of the first lyrics; I got more this time. 

Photo Credit: Aaron Burden @aaronburden

You have a mind to keep me quiet

And although you can try,

Better men have hit their knees

And bigger men have died

Again and again I repeated the song, hearing a little more of the lyrics each time. 

My mind pieced together a montage of a fighter in constant battles. Images of her standing in front of a sink looking at herself in the mirror fought with cuts of the battle. Flashes of her staring down her opponent. Bigger, better men, men who want to keep her quiet. Flashes back to the sink, each time there are more scars, but her eyes hold the determination. 

I needed to discover this woman. It’s a burst of creative inspiration I’d never had before and haven’t had since. I wrote most of Fallen Lorde while finishing Ghost Eyes. From Raise Hell came my personal favorite book in the Kootenai Pack series so far. 

There are so many other songs on the Kootenai playlist that I adore. But the ones mentioned here were the sparks for me. So thank you Barns Courtney, Rhonda Vincent (and Dolly Parton), but a big special thank you to Brandi Carlile. I couldn’t have done it without y’alls kick ass music. 

 Photo credit Aaron Burden @aaronburden

Fallen Lorde- Extended Epilogue (Spoilers for Kootenai Pack)

Hello all!

I’ve been working on Mark of the Void and Ginger’s book so much, I’ve been missing Kootenai. It’ll be a while before we get out of Easterville so here’s a bit of a taste of what happens after Fallen Lorde.

This takes place almost Eighteen years after the Fall of the House of Lorde (fifteen years after the end of Fallen Lorde)

“Kendrick! Kendrick! Come quick!” I shouted. No, I screamed. The bowl of popcorn dropped from my hands, popped kernels spread all over the wooden floor.

I survived over a hundred rank challenges, birthing twins, and every challenge my job as Kootenai Pack Beta threw at me. 

But this was too much. 

It was too soon.

They were too young for this.

“Willow!” Kendrick came bounding out of his office to the game room and he skidded to a halt, “Is that? Are those?”

I nodded, unable to rip my eyes from where my teenagers had been arguing only a minute ago. It was just a normal family movie night. The kids were yelling once again about movie choice while I made popcorn and Kendrick finished up his Alpha duties for the day. 

I was only in the kitchen for a minute, but when I returned, my twin teen terrors were gone. Replaced by two wolves. The tiny black one chewed on my brand new sofa, while the fluffy white one turned its attention to the popcorn all over the floor.  

I guess if there had to be a perk to my children getting their wolves early, I’d take popcorn clean up. 

“But it’s too soon,” Kendrick said, easing his way behind me, “They’re barely fourteen.”

“You shifted at thirteen,” I reminded him. 

He winced, “I was also in the midst of major trauma,” over the years, Kendrick made amazing strides in therapy. He was very open with Danny and Ava about his relationship with his parents and his history with the leaders of the Rogue Shifter Coalition. Overtime, the whole pack knew about the treatment we’d all faced at the hands of the deceased Alpha Biel. 

I rubbed Kendrick’s arm, “I guess having to watch the remake of the Mighty Ducks for the tenth time this year would have been pretty traumatic for Ava.”

“You’re hilarious.” 

Kendrick looked back at our pups- whelps. My babies were whelps now. I was officially old. Soon they’d be leaving for out of pack education and finding their mates and having pups of their own. 

“Who do you think their mates are?” I asked, “Should we let the twin terrors loose on the town and find out?”

Kendrick growled, “They’re too young.”

I threw my head back and laughed, “I’m not saying I want to be a grandma or anything, I’m just curious if it’s anyone in the pack.”

“I just don’t want them to feel pressured one way or the other.” 

I agreed. We’d grown as partners raising our pups and growing our pack. But the rejections of our Moon Blessed Mates still lingered. Our howls turned to whimpers over the years eventually disappearing altogether, but the pain never truly went away. 

I loved Kendrick with all my heart, my wolf did too. We found each other and created the life we always wanted. In doing so, we shaped the pack in our image. Moon Blessings stopped being an excuse for unhealthy behavior. My pups would never know the pain I felt with Jackson. They’d never suffer the absence Kendrick felt when Aster left. 

The two adolescent wolves stopped chewing on their respective distractions and started chewing on each other. 

“At least they’ll always have a sparring partner.” 

“Ava’s going to kick Danny’s ass,” Kendrick said, watching the two wolves roll around on the rug. 

“How do you know which one’s which?” I asked. The pups hadn’t stopped moving long enough to figure out who was who.

Kendrick shrugged, “Your daughter has hunter written all over her. Danny’s a lover, not a fighter. Besides, if he’s too mean to Ava, little Millie Nelson would never forgive him.”

At the sound of Millie Nelson’s name, the white wolf lifted his head. After a second, he bolted from the game room. The black wolf which must be Ava, took off in the other direction. No doubt to cut her brother off before he ran to her best friend’s house.

“You’re on Danny duty,” I yelled, following my daughter down the hallway. 

“Stay safe, I love you!” Kendrick yelled on his way out of the room. 

“I love you too!”